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Cancer biology

Signatures guide drug choice

Nature volume 439, pages 274–275 (2006)Cite this article

Cancer drugs are increasingly designed to target specific cell-signalling pathways. When, and in what combination, these drugs should be used might be judged by analysing the gene expression signature of the tumour.

Current approaches to the design of drugs against cancer assume that almost all tumours escape normal growth regulation by usurping a few of the dozen or so key cell-signalling pathways. However, pathways can be activated at different points, so it is not always easy to tell which signalling mechanism has been activated by looking for mutations in known cancer-associated genes (oncogenes, or tumour-suppressor genes). If the gene at the top of a signalling cascade is unaffected, for instance, one cannot assume that the pathway is not involved, as a factor further downstream might have been activated. It can thus be hard to predict the best treatment for a particular tumour. Two papers in this issue1,2 address this problem in different ways, and provide a potential strategy for choosing the most effective combination of therapies based on the gene expression signature of a tumour.

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Figure 1: Oncogene activation, transcription signatures and drug sensitivity.

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  1. the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute, 44 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3PX, UK

    Julian Downward

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  1. Julian Downward
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Downward, J. Signatures guide drug choice. Nature 439, 274–275 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/439274a

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