Integration of Online Omics-Data Resources for Cancer Research

The manifestations of cancerous phenotypes necessitate alterations at different levels of information-flow from genome to proteome. The molecular alterations at different information processing levels serve as the basis for the cancer phenotype to emerge. To understand the underlying mechanisms that drive the acquisition of cancer hallmarks it is required to interrogate cancer cells using multiple levels of information flow represented by different omics - such as genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics. The advantage of multi-omics data integration comes with a trade-off in the form of an added layer of complexity originating from inherently diverse types of omics-datasets that may pose a challenge to integrate the omics-data in a biologically meaningful manner. The plethora of cancer-specific online omics-data resources, if able…