title: Survival trees for analyzing clinical outcome in lung adenocarcinomas based on gene expression profiles: identification of neogenin and diacylglycerol kinase alpha expression as critical factors.
abstract: We present survival trees as an exploratory tool for revealing new insights into gene expression profiles in combination with clinical patient data. Survival trees partition the patient data studied into groups with similar survival outcomes and identify characteristic genetic profiles within these groups. We demonstrate the application of survival trees in a study involving the expression profiles of 3,588 genes in 211 lung adenocarcinoma patients. The survival tree identified a group of early-stage cancer patients with relatively low survival rates and another group of advanced-stage patients with remarkably good survival outcome. For both groups, the tree identified characteristic expression profiles of genes that might play a role in cancerogenesis and disease progression, notably the genes for the netrin receptor neogenin and the Ras/Rho kinase modulator diacylglycerol kinase alpha.
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Research Group, School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Life and Health Sciences, University of Ulster, Cromore Road, BT52 1SA, Coleraine, Northern Ireland. dp.berrar@ulster.ac.uk
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Berrar
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sturgeon
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Bradbury
authors.forename: C Stephen
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Downes
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Dubitzky
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000401:mortality; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics; D019852:Diacylglycerol Kinase / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000401:mortality; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D016019:Survival Analysis; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D008565:Membrane Proteins; C091279:neogenin; D019852:Diacylglycerol Kinase