TANRIC: An Interactive Open Platform to Explore the Function of lncRNAs in Cancer

Abstract

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNA) have emerged as essential players in cancer biology. Using recent large-scale RNA-seq datasets, especially those from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), we have developed "The Atlas of Noncoding RNAs in Cancer" (TANRIC; http://bioinformatics.mdanderson.org/main/TANRIC:Overview), a user-friendly, open-access web resource for interactive exploration of lncRNAs in cancer. It characterizes the expression profiles of lncRNAs in large patient cohorts of 20 cancer types, including TCGA and independent datasets (>8,000 samples overall). TANRIC enables researchers to rapidly and intuitively analyze lncRNAs of interest (annotated lncRNAs or any user-defined ones) in the context of clinical and other molecular data, both within and across tumor types. Using TANRIC, we have identified a large number of lncRNAs with potential biomedical significance, many of which show strong correlations with established therapeutic targets and biomarkers across tumor types or with drug sensitivity across cell lines. TANRIC represents a valuable tool for investigating the function and clinical relevance of lncRNAs in cancer, greatly facilitating lncRNA-related biologic discoveries and clinical applications.