AMLdb: a comprehensive multi-omics platform to identify biomarkers and drug targets for acute myeloid leukemia

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is one of the leading leukemic malignancies in adults. The heterogeneity of the disease makes the diagnosis and treatment extremely difficult. With the advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, exploration at the molecular level for the identification of biomarkers and drug targets has been the focus for the researchers to come up with novel therapies for better prognosis and survival outcomes of AML patients. However, the huge amount of data from NGS platforms requires a comprehensive AML platform to streamline literature mining efforts and save time. To facilitate this, we developed AMLdb, an interactive multi-omics platform that allows users to query, visualize, retrieve, and analyse AML related multi-omics data. AMLdb contains 86 datasets for gene expression profiles, 15 datasets for methylation profiles, CRISPR-Cas9 knockout screens of 26 AML cell lines, sensitivity of 26 AML cell lines to 288 drugs, mutations in 41 unique genes in 23 AML cell lines, and information on 41 experimentally validated biomarkers. In this study, we have reported five genes, i.e. CBFB, ENO1, IMPDH2, SEPHS2, and MYH9 identified via our analysis using AMLdb. ENO1 is uniquely identified gene which requires further investigation as a novel potential target while other reported genes have been previously confirmed as targets through experimental studies. Top of form we believe that these findings utilizing AMLdb can make it an invaluable resource to accelerate the development of effective therapies for AML and assisting the research community in advancing their understanding of AML pathogenesis. AMLdb is freely available at https://project.iith.ac.in/cgntlab/amldb.