Utility of the JAX Clinical Knowledgebase in capture and assessment of complex genomic cancer data

NPJ Precis Oncol. 2019 Jan 15:3:2. doi: 10.1038/s41698-018-0073-y. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Cancer genomic data is continually growing in complexity, necessitating improved methods for data capture and analysis. Tumors often contain multiple therapeutically relevant alterations, and co-occurring alterations may have a different influence on therapeutic response compared to if those alterations were present alone. One clinically important example of this is the existence of a resistance conferring alteration in combination with a therapeutic sensitizing mutation. The JAX Clinical Knowledgebase (JAX-CKB) (https://ckb.jax.org/) has incorporated the concept of the complex molecular profile, which enables association of therapeutic efficacy data with multiple genomic alterations simultaneously. This provides a mechanism for rapid and accurate assessment of complex cancer-related data, potentially aiding in streamlined clinical decision making. Using the JAX-CKB, we demonstrate the utility of associating data with complex profiles comprising ALK fusions with another variant, which have differing impacts on sensitivity to various ALK inhibitors depending on context.