New free-source bioinformatics tool identifies disease-causing factors



[ad_1]

Researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have developed and tested a new computer tool, Driver Candidate Analysis (CaDrA), which will look for combinations of factors that may cause a specific disease. . CaDrA recognizes that diseases are complex and probably induced by multiple causes. It is now available free to members of the research community.

To measure the ability of CaDrA to select sets of genomic characteristics responsible for certain oncogenic phenotypes in cancer, the researchers performed extensive evaluations based on simulated data, as well as actual genomic data from cancer cell lines and tumors. human primitives. The results of their simulations showed that CaDrA had high sensitivity for medium to large datasets, and high specificity for all sample sizes considered.

"We have shown CaDrA's ability to correctly identify well-characterized driver mutations in cancer cell lines and primary tumors covering several types of cancer, as well as its ability to uncover new features badociated with invasive phenotypes in cancer samples." of the human bad, "explained the corresponding author Stefano. Monti, Ph.D., badociate professor of medicine at BUSM.

According to the researchers, this tool can be used to search for genetic and epigenetic alterations that may cause malignancy of interest, and in doing so, it can contribute to the identification of new therapeutic targets.

"As the size and quality of publicly available multi-omic resources continue to grow, CaDrA will give biomedical practitioners the opportunity to question these resources when they are looking for genetic and epigenetic factors that contribute to susceptibility to disease, drug sensitivity and / or pathways ", Vinay Kartha, Ph.D., first author, graduated from the BU's Bioinformatics Program and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Broad Institute.

These results appear in the log Frontiers in genetics.


Researchers develop new approach to identify cancer "drivers"


Provided by
Boston University School of Medicine

Quote:
New Open Source Bioinformatics Tool Identifies Disease Factors (February 19, 1919)
recovered on February 19, 2019
at https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-02-open-source-bioinformatics-tool-factors-responsible.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair use for study or private research purposes, no
part may be reproduced without written permission. Content is provided for information only.

[ad_2]
Source link