%0 Journal Article
%T The functional cancer map: A systems-level synopsis of genetic deregulation in cancer
%A Markus Krupp
%A Thorsten Maass
%A Jens U Marquardt
%A Frank Staib
%A Tobias Bauer
%A Rainer K£¿nig
%A Stefan Biesterfeld
%A Peter R Galle
%A Achim Tresch
%A Andreas Teufel
%J BMC Medical Genomics
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1755-8794-4-53
%X Complete available human tumor data of the Stanford Microarray Database was downloaded and filtered for relevance, adequacy and reliability. A total of 649 tumor samples from more than 1400 experiments and 58 different tissues were analyzed. Next, a method to score deregulation of KEGG pathway maps in different tumor entities was established, which was then used to convert hundreds of gene expression profiles into corresponding tumor-specific pathway activity profiles. Based on the latter, we defined a measure for functional similarity between tumor entities, which yielded to phylogeny of tumors.We provide a comprehensive, easy-to-interpret functional cancer map that characterizes tumor types with respect to their biological and functional behavior. Consistently, multiple pathways commonly associated with tumor progression were revealed as common features in the majority of the tumors. However, several pathways previously not linked to carcinogenesis were identified in multiple cancers suggesting an essential role of these pathways in cancer biology. Among these pathways were 'ECM-receptor interaction', 'Complement and Coagulation cascades', and 'PPAR signaling pathway'.The functional cancer map provides a systematic view on molecular similarities across different cancers by comparing tumors on the level of pathway activity. This work resulted in identification of novel superimposed functional pathways potentially linked to cancer biology. Therefore, our work may serve as a starting point for rationalizing combination of tumor therapeutics as well as for expanding the application of well-established targeted tumor therapies.Cancer is one of the leading causes of death [1]. If segregated by age, cancer, has even surpassed the mortality of heart diseases and has become the deadliest disease in the world, with 12.7 million new cases and 7.6 million deaths worldwide [2]. Furthermore, due to the steadily increase in aging and expansion of the world's population an ongoin
%K cancer
%K systems biology
%K prognostic marker
%K microarray
%K bioinformatics
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1755-8794/4/53