DISARM user guide

Data Set

Select a data set from drop-down menu to query. Current options include Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer (GDSC) and NCI-SCLC (Polley E et al., J Natl Canc Inst, 2016. ).

Disease

Select a cancer type to query from TCGA designations available in drop-down menu.

Drug X (Reference)

Input name of drug you wish to use as reference (Drug X, i.e. If resistant to Drug X, then sensitive to what?). Hint: Try multiple names if you cannot find your drug of interest.

X Resistance Cut-off

Use slider or input value for X resistance cut-off. This value represents the desired quantile to define cut-off for resistance to Drug X. For example, if 0.25 is selected, the highest 25% of IC50 values will be considered resistant to Drug X. A lower value implies a more stringent definition of resistance. This value can be adjusted by clicking or dragging red circle within scatter plot.

Y Sensitivity Cut-off

Use slider or input value for Y sensitivity cut-off. This value represents the desired quantile to define cut-off for sensitivity to all other drugs (Drug(s) Y). For example, if 0.75 is selected, the lowest 75% of IC50 values will be considered sensitive to any Drug Y. A lower value implies a more stringent definition of sensitivity. This value can be adjusted by clicking or dragging red circle within scatter plot.

Result table

Results table is generated with selected drugs ranked according to p-value. Score indicates the DISARM score, computed as Wald test statistic, with increasing values denoting increasing resistance to Drug X (reference drug) and sensitivity to Drug Y (candidate drug). p-value indicates statistical significance of DISARM score, calculated from Wald test statistic and following standard normal distribution. Enter drug name into search bar to query for drug of interest in list. Click on any row to generate scatter plot for that drug pair. Select options to export results as CSV file for Microsoft Excel or to copy data.

Scatter plot

Scatter plot is generated after clicking on results table row for drug of interest. Adjust cut-off values by clicking anywhere in plot or dragging red circle to cut-offs of interest with real-time updates of DISARM score and p-value of drug pair displayed above scatter plot. Export scatter plot as PDF by selecting PDF option. Color-coded 2x2 table in lower right corner also updates in real time to display number of cell lines in each quadrant. To identify specific cell lines, click on points in scatter plot.