Database

PrognoScan: a new database for meta-analysis of the prognostic value of genes

Hideaki Mizuno^1,2 , Kunio Kitada¹ , Kenta Nakai³ and Akinori Sarai²

¹Pharmaceutical Technology Department, Kamakura Research Laboratories, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan

²Department of Biosciences and Bioinformatics, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Iizuka, Fukuoka, Japan

³Human Genome Center, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan

author email corresponding author email

BMC Medical Genomics 2009, 2:18doi:10.1186/1755-8794-2-18

Published:	24 April 2009

Abstract

Background

In cancer research, the association between a gene and clinical outcome suggests the underlying etiology of the disease and consequently can motivate further studies. The recent availability of published cancer microarray datasets with clinical annotation provides the opportunity for linking gene expression to prognosis. However, the data are not easy to access and analyze without an effective analysis platform.

Description

To take advantage of public resources in full, a database named "PrognoScan" has been developed. This is 1) a large collection of publicly available cancer microarray datasets with clinical annotation, as well as 2) a tool for assessing the biological relationship between gene expression and prognosis. PrognoScan employs the minimum P-value approach for grouping patients for survival analysis that finds the optimal cutpoint in continuous gene expression measurement without prior biological knowledge or assumption and, as a result, enables systematic meta-analysis of multiple datasets.

Conclusion

PrognoScan provides a powerful platform for evaluating potential tumor markers and therapeutic targets and would accelerate cancer research. The database is publicly accessible at http://gibk21.bse.kyutech.ac.jp/PrognoScan/index.html webcite.