cancercelllines.org—a novel resource for genomic variants in cancer cell lines

Abstract

Cancer cell lines are an important component in biological and medical research, enabling studies of cellular mechanisms as well as the development and testing of pharmaceuticals. Genomic alterations in cancer cell lines are widely studied as models for oncogenetic events and are represented in a wide range of primary resources. We have created a comprehensive, curated knowledge resource—cancercelllines.org—with the aim to enable easy access to genomic profiling data in cancer cell lines, curated from a variety of resources and integrating both copy number and single nucleotide variants data. We have gathered over 5600 copy number profiles as well as single nucleotide variant annotations for 16 000 cell lines and provide these data with mappings to the GRCh38 reference genome. Both genomic variations and associated curated metadata can be queried through the GA4GH Beacon v2 Application Programming Interface (API) and a graphical user interface with extensive data retrieval enabled using GA4GH data schemas under a permissive licensing scheme. Database URL: https://cancercelllines.org