This study explores the roles of genome copy number abnormalities (CNAs) in breast cancer pathophysiology by identifying associations between recurrent CNAs, gene expression, and clinical outcome in a set of aggressively treated early-stage breast tumors. It shows that the recurrent CNAs differ between tumor subtypes defined by expression pattern and that stratification of patients according to outcome can be improved by measuring both expression and copy number, especially high-level amplification. Sixty-six genes deregulated by the high-level amplifications are potential therapeutic targets. Nine of these (FGFR1, IKBKB, ERBB2, PROCC, ADAM9, FNTA, ACACA, PNMT, and NR1D1) are considered druggable. Low-level CNAs appear to contribute to cancer progression by altering RNA and cellular metabolism.

Surflex is a fully automatic flexible molecular docking algorithm that combines the scoring function from the Hammerhead docking system with a search engine that relies on a surface-based molecular similarity method as a means to rapidly generate suitable putative poses for molecular fragments. Results are presented evaluating reliability and accuracy of dockings compared with crystallographic experimental results on 81 protein/ligand pairs of substantial structural diversity. In over 80% of the complexes, Surflex's highest scoring docked pose was within 2.5 A root-mean-square deviation (rmsd), with over 90% of the complexes having one of the top ranked poses within 2.5 A rmsd. Results are also presented assessing Surflex's utility as a screening tool on two protein targets (thymidine kinase and estrogen receptor) using data sets on which competing methods were run. Performance of Surflex was significantly better, with true positive rates of greater than 80% at false positive rates of less than 1%. Docking time was roughly linear in number of rotatable bonds, beginning with a few seconds for rigid molecules and adding approximately 10 s per rotatable bond.

We have assembled arrays of approximately 2,400 BAC clones for measurement of DNA copy number across the human genome. The arrays provide precise measurement (s.d. of log2 ratios=0.05-0.10) in cell lines and clinical material, so that we can reliably detect and quantify high-level amplifications and single-copy alterations in diploid, polyploid and heterogeneous backgrounds.

The RAS/mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway sends external growth-promoting signals to the nucleus. BRAF, a critical serine/threonine kinase in this pathway, is frequently activated by somatic mutation in melanoma. Using a cohort of 115 patients with primary invasive melanomas, we show that BRAF mutations are statistically significantly more common in melanomas occurring on skin subject to intermittent sun exposure than elsewhere (23 of 43 patients; P<.001, two-sided Fisher's exact test). By contrast, BRAF mutations in melanomas on chronically sun-damaged skin (1 of 12 patients) and melanomas on skin relatively or completely unexposed to sun, such as palms, soles, subungual sites (6 of 39 patients), and mucosal membranes (2 of 21 patients) are rare. We found no association of mutation status with clinical outcome or with the presence of an associated melanocytic nevus. The mutated BRAF allele was frequently found at an elevated copy number, implicating BRAF as one of the factors driving selection for the frequent copy number increases of chromosome 7q in melanoma. In summary, the uneven distribution of BRAF mutations strongly suggests distinct genetic pathways leading to melanoma. The high mutation frequency in melanomas arising on intermittently sun-exposed skin suggests a complex causative role of such exposure that mandates further evaluation.

The Surflex flexible molecular docking method has been generalized and extended in two primary areas related to the search component of docking. First, incorporation of a small-molecule force-field extends the search into Cartesian coordinates constrained by internal ligand energetics. Whereas previous versions searched only the alignment and acyclic torsional space of the ligand, the new approach supports dynamic ring flexibility and allatom optimization of docked ligand poses. Second, knowledge of well established molecular interactions between ligand fragments and a target protein can be directly exploited to guide the search process. This offers advantages in some cases over the search strategy where ligand alignment is guided solely by a ''protomol'' (a pre-computed molecular representation of an idealized ligand). Results are presented on both docking accuracy and screening utility using multiple publicly available benchmark data sets that place Surflex's performance in the context of other molecular docking methods. In terms of docking accuracy, Surflex-Dock 2.1 performs as well as the best available methods. In the area of screening utility, Surflex's performance is extremely robust, and it is clearly superior to other methods within the set of cases for which comparative data are available, with roughly double the screening enrichment performance.

Exploitation of protein structures for potential drug leads by molecular docking is critically dependent on methods for scoring putative protein-ligand interactions. An ideal function for scoring must exhibit predictive accuracy and high computational speed, and must be tolerant of variations in the relative protein-ligand molecular alignment and conformation. This paper describes the development of an empirically derived scoring function, based on the binding affinities of protein-ligand complexes coupled with their crystallographically determined structures. The function's primary terms involve hydrophobic and polar complementarity, with additional terms for entropic and solvation effects. The issue of alignment/conformation dependence was solved by constructing a continuous differentiable nonlinear function with the requirement that maxima in ligand conformation/alignment space corresponded closely to crystallographically determined structures. The expected error in the predicted affinity based on cross-validation was 1.0 log unit. The function is sufficiently fast and accurate to serve as the objective function of a molecular-docking search engine. The function is particularly well suited to the docking problem, since it has spatially narrow maxima that are broadly accessible via gradient descent.

The field of computational chemistry, particularly as applied to drug design, has become increasingly important in terms of the practical application of predictive modeling to pharmaceutical research and development. Tools for exploiting protein structures or sets of ligands known to bind particular targets can be used for bindingmode prediction, virtual screening, and prediction of activity. A serious weakness within the field is a lack of standards with respect to quantitative evaluation of methods, data set preparation, and data set sharing. Our goal should be to report new methods or comparative evaluations of methods in a manner that supports decision making for practical applications. Here we propose a modest beginning, with recommendations for requirements on statistical reporting, requirements for data sharing, and best practices for benchmark preparation and usage.

Background: Genomic DNA copy number aberrations are frequent in solid tumors, although the underlying causes of chromosomal instability in tumors remain obscure. Genes likely to have genomic instability phenotypes when mutated (e.g. those involved in mitosis, replication, repair, and telomeres) are rarely mutated in chromosomally unstable sporadic tumors, even though such mutations are associated with some heritable cancer prone syndromes.