CTR-DB, an omnibus for patient-derived gene expression signatures correlated with cancer drug response

Zhongyang Liu1,2, Jiale Liu1, Xinyue Liu1

  • 1State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Beijing Proteome Research Center, National Center for Protein Sciences (Beijing), Beijing Institute of Lifeomics, Beijing 102206, China.

Nucleic Acids Research
|September 27, 2021
PubMed

Insights

A new database, CTR-DB, offers researchers access to integrated cancer drug response data. This resource aids in understanding drug resistance and discovering new biomarkers for cancer treatment.

Area of Science:

  • Oncology
  • Bioinformatics
  • Genomics

Background:

  • Chemotherapy and targeted therapies are effective for only a subset of cancer patients.
  • Drug resistance remains a significant challenge in cancer research.
  • Managing and integrating large-scale clinical transcriptomic data for drug response is complex.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To introduce the Cancer Treatment Response gene signature DataBase (CTR-DB).
  • To provide a centralized platform for accessing, integrating, and reusing clinical transcriptomic data linked to cancer drug response.
  • To facilitate research into molecular determinants of drug response and resistance.

Main Methods:

  • Collected and uniformly reprocessed 83 patient-derived pre-treatment transcriptomic datasets.
  • Manually curated cancer drug response information for 5139 patient samples across 28 cancer types and 123 drugs.
  • Developed a browsable, searchable, and downloadable database with tools for data exploration and analysis.

Main Results:

  • CTR-DB integrates diverse transcriptomic data with comprehensive drug response information.
  • The database supports single and multiple dataset analyses, including differential gene expression and biomarker validation.
  • Facilitates exploration of drug resistance mechanisms and discovery of predictive biomarkers.

Conclusions:

  • CTR-DB serves as a valuable resource for researchers studying cancer drug response and resistance.
  • The database enables deeper insights into resistance mechanisms, biomarker discovery, and personalized treatment strategies.
  • Facilitates the reuse of clinical transcriptomic data for advancing cancer therapy.