Bioinformatics Seminar
Time:
Venue: Na
9 August 2016
NaA transcriptional signature of TGFβ-induced epithelial mesenchymal transition in cancer
Sepideh ForoutanWEHI Bioinformatics
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a developmental program subverted by cancer cells as they progress through the metastatic cascade. EMT is associated with an aggressive ; migratory cell phenotype and it can contribute to clinical chemotherapeutic resistance and poor treatment outcomes. EMT can be induced by different stimuli ; of which transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) is one of the best studied. We have used meta-analysis methods to identify a robust transcriptomic signature of TGFβ-induced EMT ; and then used this signature to distinguish cancer cell lines and patient samples with evidence of TGFβ-induced EMT. We examine the signature across multiple breast cancer and pan-cancer datasets ; demonstrating that: our results are reproducible on independent data; cell-line and patient samples show consistent ; cancer type-specific levels of TGFβ-EMT activity ; and; our TGFβ-induced EMT signature is influenced by the accumulation of genetic mutations across the TGFβ signalling pathway. Finally ; we apply our signature to stratify patients and show differences in survival outcome ; and identify cell lines with resistance to common cancer drugs.