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BookmarkScienceDaily (May 18, 2009) — A team of researchers, at the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research, Germany, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, has developed a new genomics approach that enabled them to predict whether non–small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) will respond to specific therapeutics in vitro and in mouse models of lung cancer.
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They hope that this information can be translated into clinical practice.
The team, led by Roman Thomas, Kwok-Kin Wong, and Matthew Meyerson, determined that the genomes of a large panel of human NSCLC cell lines are highly representative of those of primary NSCLC tumors. Using this panel of cell lines they identified genomic and molecular indicators of a response to clinically relevant drugs.
For example, cell lines with an increased number of copies of the ABL2 gene and/or an increased number of copies of the Ephrin receptor kinase and SRC kinase family genes were sensitive to treatment with a clinically used SRC/ABL inhibitor (dasatinib), both in vitro and when they were xenografted into mice.
he authors suggest that the cell line collection characterized here will provide a tool for investigating the effect of potential new anticancer drugs in genomically defined cancer types and thereby help define the patients for which a drug will be most effective.
Journal reference:
- . Predicting drug susceptibility of non%u2013small cell lung cancers based on genetic lesions. Journal of Clinical Investigation, May 18, 2009
