Summary

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Ovarian Phenotype Research Group is part of the Cancer Imaging Project TCGA Radiology Initiativefocused on analyzing images from the TCGA-ovarian (OV) collections. Images which correlate to the ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma (OSC) tissue data in TCGA’s Data Portal are being gathered for submission to The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA).

According to the TCGA page on OSC, TCGA researchers have:

Confirmed that mutations in gene TP53 are present in more than 96 percent of ovarian cases. The TP53 gene encodes a tumor suppressor protein that normally prevents cancer development.
Analyzed gene expression patterns and found signatures that correlate with poor or better survival. Patients whose tumors showed a gene expression pattern associated with poor survival lived a period 23 percent shorter than patients without that signature.
Affirmed the existence of four distinct subtypes of ovarian cancer through examination of RNA transcription and DNA methylation patterns.
Observed that patients with mutations in their BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes have better odds of survival than patients without mutations in those genes. Approximately 21 percent of tumor cases in this study exhibited BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations.
Identified therapeutic opportunities by searching for existing drugs that might correct a genomic error that causes a patient's ovarian cancer. The search yielded 68 genes that could be targeted by existing Food and Drug Administration-approved or experimental therapeutic compounds.

Research and Publications

Per TCGA and TCIA Guidelines, formal permission requests are still required to submit publications using TCGA-OV data. Please see the following links for more information about the freedom-to-publish criteria for these data sets:

Data Source	Status
TCGA Data Portal Publication Guidelines	No restrictions; all data available without limitations.
TCIA Data Usage Policies and Restrictions	Projects have not reached 100 imaging cases; please check with cancerimagingarchive@mail.nih.gov prior to any publication.

Please contact us at cancerimagingarchive@mail.nih.gov if you have any questions about these policies.

TCGA-OV Marker Paper and Image Source Sites (ISS)

Imaging Source Site (ISS) Groups will be populated and governed by participants from institutions that have provided imaging data to the archive for a given cancer type. Modeled after TCGA analysis groups, ISS groups are given the opportunity to publish a marker paper for a given cancer type per TCGA Publication Guidelines. This opportunity will generate increased participation in building these multi-institutional data sets as they become an open community resource. Current TCGA-OV source sites include:

Washington University St. Louis
MSKCC
UPMC
MDACC
UNC

Please contact Dr. Evis Sala (salae@mskcc.org) if you have scientific questions you would like to direct to the TCGA-OV ISS, or are interested in collaborating with their group.

References

The following links contain publications from the main TCGA project as well as their posted publication guidelines: