DCTD Releases A New Resource for Exploring Cell Line Transcriptional Responses to Anti-Cancer Agents:
The NCI Transcriptional Pharmacodynamics Workbench

Assessing changes in cancer cell gene expression following treatment with oncology drugs enables better understanding of drug mechanisms of action and the molecular basis of drug sensitivity and resistance. A recent publication in Cancer Research outlines the extensive development and application of a resource for such analyses of gene expression changes: the NCI Transcriptional Pharmacodynamics Workbench (NCI TPW).

The NCI TPW complements existing platforms such as the Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer (GDSC), Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE), and the NIH Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS) project by offering a centralized compilation of both drug sensitivity and directly measured longitudinal transcriptional response data for a large, common set of cancer cell lines.

The NCI TPW is a publicly available resource that offers:

• Gene expression data for more than 12,000 genes in the NCI-60 panel of human tumor cell lines at multiple time points following exposure to 15 different anticancer agents
• Heatmaps of genes affected by anti-cancer agents, organized by signaling pathway, interactions with a specific transcription factor, or receptor type
• Corresponding drug sensitivity data
• Analysis tools to assess these data in the context of signaling pathways and mutations of interest
• Mechanistic insights from gene expression data that can identify agent combinations that may be appropriate for further preclinical or eventual clinical studies

The NCI TPW is a valuable resource for the scientific community that could provide information for drug development decisions.
Access the NCI TPW.