Journal of Translational Medicine (Aug 2019)

Identifying subpathway signatures for individualized anticancer drug response by integrating multi-omics data

  • Yanjun Xu,
  • Qun Dong,
  • Feng Li,
  • Yingqi Xu,
  • Congxue Hu,
  • Jingwen Wang,
  • Desi Shang,
  • Xuan Zheng,
  • Haixiu Yang,
  • Chunlong Zhang,
  • Mengting Shao,
  • Mohan Meng,
  • Zhiying Xiong,
  • Xia Li,
  • Yunpeng Zhang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-019-2010-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 17, no. 1
pp. 1 – 16

Abstract

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Abstract Background Individualized drug response prediction is vital for achieving personalized treatment of cancer and moving precision medicine forward. Large-scale multi-omics profiles provide unprecedented opportunities for precision cancer therapy. Methods In this study, we propose a pipeline to identify subpathway signatures for anticancer drug response of individuals by integrating the comprehensive contributions of multiple genetic and epigenetic (gene expression, copy number variation and DNA methylation) alterations. Results Totally, 46 subpathway signatures associated with individual responses to different anticancer drugs were identified based on five cancer-drug response datasets. We have validated the reliability of subpathway signatures in two independent datasets. Furthermore, we also demonstrated these multi-omics subpathway signatures could significantly improve the performance of anticancer drug response prediction. In-depth analysis of these 46 subpathway signatures uncovered the essential roles of three omics types and the functional associations underlying different anticancer drug responses. Patient stratification based on subpathway signatures involved in anticancer drug response identified subtypes with different clinical outcomes, implying their potential roles as prognostic biomarkers. In addition, a landscape of subpathways associated with cellular responses to 191 anticancer drugs from CellMiner was provided and the mechanism similarity of drug action was accurately unclosed based on these subpathways. Finally, we constructed a user-friendly web interface-CancerDAP (http://bio-bigdata.hrbmu.edu.cn/CancerDAP/) available to explore 2751 subpathways relevant with 191 anticancer drugs response. Conclusions Taken together, our study identified and systematically characterized subpathway signatures for individualized anticancer drug response prediction, which may promote the precise treatment of cancer and the study for molecular mechanisms of drug actions.

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