CRI iAtlas: an interactive portal for immuno-oncology research

F1000Res. 2020 Aug 24:9:1028. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.25141.1. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

The Cancer Research Institute (CRI) iAtlas is an interactive web platform for data exploration and discovery in the context of tumors and their interactions with the immune microenvironment. iAtlas allows researchers to study immune response characterizations and patterns for individual tumor types, tumor subtypes, and immune subtypes. iAtlas supports computation and visualization of correlations and statistics among features related to the tumor microenvironment, cell composition, immune expression signatures, tumor mutation burden, cancer driver mutations, adaptive cell clonality, patient survival, expression of key immunomodulators, and tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) spatial maps. iAtlas was launched to accompany the release of the TCGA PanCancer Atlas and has since been expanded to include new capabilities such as (1) user-defined loading of sample cohorts, (2) a tool for classifying expression data into immune subtypes, and (3) integration of TIL mapping from digital pathology images. We expect that the CRI iAtlas will accelerate discovery and improve patient outcomes by providing researchers access to standardized immunogenomics data to better understand the tumor immune microenvironment and its impact on patient responses to immunotherapy.

Keywords: R; Shiny; cancer; genomics; immunology; systems biology.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Academies and Institutes
  • Humans
  • Immunotherapy
  • Lymphocytes, Tumor-Infiltrating
  • Neoplasms* / genetics
  • Tumor Microenvironment

Grants and funding

Funding for this work from the Cancer Research Institute is gratefully acknowledged. Dr. Vincent acknowledges support from the UNC University Cancer Research Fund and a Career Catalyst Research grant from the Susan G. Komen Foundation.