Drug response profile-based machine learning enables strategic cell line and compound selection for drug development

Early-stage drug discovery relies on testing compounds across a limited set of cell lines, making it challenging to capture biological diversity while maintaining experimental efficiency. Current predictive approaches for identifying responsive cell lines often depend on high-dimensional omics data, which can be costly and difficult to interpret. We therefore evaluated whether drug-response panel (DRP) descriptors, which capture sensitivity profiles to a reference set of compounds, can provide an efficient and informative alternative for modelling drug response in cell lines.

Using gradient boosting models across GDSC and CCLE datasets, DRP descriptors consistently outperformed mRNA expression features in predicting drug sensitivity (-log10(IC50)), although performance varied across compounds. DRP-guided cell line selection enabled downstream omics-based modelling that recovered known MAPK-associated sensitivity signatures and identified potential biomarkers for MEK1/2 and BTK/MNK inhibitors. Extending this framework, we demonstrated its utility in compound prioritisation by distinguishing between tumourigenic MCF7 and non-tumourigenic MCF10A cells, successfully identifying compounds with selective activity. Together, these results show that DRP-based representations, derived from compact screening panels, support efficient cell line selection, biomarker discovery, and compound prioritisation in early-stage drug development.

Code and data uploaded to https://github.com/abbiAR/-Strategic-Cell-Line-and-Compound-Selection-Using-Drug-Response-Profiles.