A tool for discovering drug sensitivity and gene expression associations in cancer cells.

Abstract

The sensitivity of cancer cells to anticancer drugs is a crucial factor for developing effective treatments. However, it is still challenging to precisely predict the effectiveness of therapeutics in humans within a complex genomic and molecular context. We developed an interface which allows the user to rapidly explore drug sensitivity and gene expression associations. Predictions for how expression of various genes affect anticancer drug activity are available for all genes for a set of therapeutics based on data from various cell lines of different origin in the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia and the Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer projects. Our application makes discovery or validation of drug sensitivity and gene expression associations efficient. Effectiveness of this tool is demonstrated by multiple known and novel examples.