# Integrated genomic characterization of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-tcga-pancreatic-integrated-characterisation-cancer-cell-2017/  
OnCo record `paper-tcga-pancreatic-integrated-characterisation-cancer-cell-2017` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

The Cancer Genome Atlas profiled 150 pancreatic cancers on every platform, confirmed the driver list, showed that tumours without a KRAS mutation carry other growth-signal drivers such as GNAS, BRAF and CTNNB1, and found some tumours with two KRAS mutations.

## Summary

Integrated genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic profiling of 150 pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma specimens, including samples with characteristically low neoplastic cellularity. Deep whole-exome sequencing revealed recurrent somatic mutations in KRAS, TP53, CDKN2A, SMAD4, RNF43, ARID1A, TGFBR2, GNAS, RREB1 and PBRM1. KRAS wild-type tumours harboured alterations in other oncogenic drivers including GNAS, BRAF, CTNNB1 and additional RAS pathway genes. A subset of tumours harboured multiple KRAS mutations, some biallelic. Protein profiling identified a favourable-prognosis subset with low epithelial-mesenchymal transition and high MTOR pathway scores.

Deposited as paad_tcga_pan_can_atlas_2018 on cBioPortal with 184 samples, including the low-cellularity and non-ductal samples excluded from the 150-tumour analysis; KRAS reads 117 of 179 sequenced there for that reason.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-24
- Journal: Cancer Cell
- Year: 2017
- DOI: 10.1016/j.ccell.2017.07.007
- Authors: Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network (Raphael BJ, Hruban RH, Aguirre AJ, et al.).
- Findings: Recurrent mutations: KRAS, TP53, CDKN2A, SMAD4, RNF43, ARID1A, TGFBR2, GNAS, RREB1, PBRM1.; KRAS wild-type tumours carry GNAS, BRAF, CTNNB1 or other RAS pathway drivers.; A subset carries multiple, sometimes biallelic, KRAS mutations.
- What it means: It is the reference multi-platform dataset and the reason a KRAS wild-type report is treated as a search for another driver rather than as an absence.
- Caveats: Low cellularity required purity-aware analysis; the public deposit is not the analysed set.; Subtype calls on bulk tissue depend on the classifier.

## Sources

- Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network, Cancer Cell 2017: integrated characterisation of 150 pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2017.07.007
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28810144/
- cBioPortal study paad_tcga_pan_can_atlas_2018 (TCGA PanCancer Atlas; 184 samples, 179 sequenced, 183 with copy number; the deposit keeps the low-cellularity and non-ductal samples the 2017 paper excluded): https://www.cbioportal.org/study/summary?id=paad_tcga_pan_can_atlas_2018

## Connected records

- cancers: [KRAS wild-type pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/kras-wild-type-pdac/), [Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/pancreatic/)
- technologies: [Proteomics & phosphoproteomics](https://onco.cc/technologies/proteomics/), [RNA sequencing & expression profiling](https://onco.cc/technologies/rna-seq/), [Whole-exome & whole-genome sequencing](https://onco.cc/technologies/wes-wgs/)
- targets: [ARID1A](https://onco.cc/targets/arid1a/), [BRAF](https://onco.cc/targets/braf/), [CDKN2A](https://onco.cc/targets/cdkn2a/), [CTNNB1](https://onco.cc/targets/ctnnb1/), [GNAS](https://onco.cc/targets/gnas/), [KRAS](https://onco.cc/targets/kras/), [RNF43](https://onco.cc/targets/rnf43/), [SMAD4](https://onco.cc/targets/smad4/), [TGFBR2](https://onco.cc/targets/tgfbr2/), [TP53](https://onco.cc/targets/tp53/)
- institutions: [Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard](https://onco.cc/institutions/broad-institute/), [Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center](https://onco.cc/institutions/dana-farber/), [National Cancer Institute (NIH)](https://onco.cc/institutions/nci/)
- pathways: [Pancreatic cancer (KEGG map)](https://onco.cc/pathways/pancreatic-cancer-signalling/), [RAS / RAF / MEK / ERK (MAPK)](https://onco.cc/pathways/ras-mapk/)
- terms: [Wild-type (WT)](https://onco.cc/terms/wild-type/)
- people: [Andrew J. Aguirre](https://onco.cc/people/andrew-aguirre/)
- journals: [Cancer Cell](https://onco.cc/journals/cancer-cell/)

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