In a study published by the Applied Proteogenomics Organizational Learning and Outcomes (APOLLO) network, a collaboration between NCI, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, researchers discovered proteins and genomes could better predict prognosis and treatment in lung cancer patients. The study, “Proteogenomic analysis of lung adenocarcinoma reveals tumor heterogeneity, survival determinants, and therapeutically relevant pathways,” focuses on:

• identifying molecular alterations and the lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) subtypes.
• integrating proteogenomic analyses to characterize LUAD subtypes.
• analyzing RNA and protein expression.
• identifying molecular features of the tumors and connect with patient survival.

Researchers measured four layers of LUAD biology:

• Genome
• Transcriptome
• Proteome
• Phosphoproteome

The systematic analysis of these data identified:

• tumor subtypes.
• alterations.
• signaling patterns.
• markers of survival.

The analysis of the study revealed new tumor characteristics related to immune cells and regulatory networks, suggesting which tumors may respond best to immunotherapies. The study also discovered a third and new molecular subtype of lung cancer. Previous studies observed current smokers and non-smokers. This new subtype explores when a person smoked and how this impacts the type of tumor developed.

The data available from this study includes:

• open-access and supplemental data in the Genomic Data Commons.
• an original data set from ProteomeXchange.
• APOLLO data from the database of Genotypes and Phenotypes.

This study includes 87 LUADs and matched normal tissues from the Lung Cancer Biospecimen Resource Network.