Classification of Breast Cancer Cell Lines into Subtypes Based on Genetic Profiles

Abstract

Today we know that there are several different types of breast cancer. Accurate identification breast cancer subtype is extremely important in treating this disease effectively. Consequently the process of invtro development of drugs to treat this disease should be naturally subtype specific. Until now several studies have identified multiple breast cancer cell lines and these cell lines have served as invaluable invitro tumor models. However very few of these cell lines are classified as per their subtypes. In this thesis an effort is made to classify 59 of such breast cancer cell lines using genetic profile comparison approach. This approach is based on comparing characteristic features such as copy number and gene expression of a given cell line to those observed from the tissue samples of different breast subtypes. The tissue data for this comparison comes from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) while cell line data is taken from Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE).