Molecular Classification and Drug Response Prediction in Cancer

Abstract

Molecular profiling of cancers can potentially yield novel gene markers of therapeutic prediction, which would aid our ability to tailor targeted therapy regimens specific to each patient. Public data from gene expression profiling may yield clues as to what oncogenic signaling pathways are deregulated in cancers, and what drugs may effectively counteract the aberrant gene regulation patterns observed. Data are also available on panels of cancer cell lines, which have been both profiled at the gene expression level and extensively characterized for drug responses, allowing us to identify gene-to-drug correlations. Profiling tumors from patients undergoing adjuvant or neoadjuvant drug treatment can also yield markers of therapeutic response. In this review, we will examine recent studies aimed at our eventually being able to use the molecular profile of a tumor to predict drug response. The profiling data from these studies is publicly available, and can be re-examined by researchers with different questions in mind, offering us a large number of biomarker candidates that could potentially be tested in the clinical setting.