Genomic characterization of 462 melanomas

The study by Garman et al. describes genetic and genomic characterization of most of our PDX collection, as well as an additional collection of more than 100 melanoma cell lines. These cell lines have never been described in such detail and will also be publicly available for the research community. This collection includes not only treatment-naïve samples, but those resistant to targeted and immunotherapies. We have made novel insights into the mutational landscape of melanomas, enabled by our large sample set. As just one example, we have identified two mutually exclusive patterns of MAPK signaling pathway mutations – 1) single hotspot BRAF or NRAS mutations, and 2) multiple non-hotspot variants across different genes encoding proteins within the MAPK signaling pathway. These data lay the groundwork for multiple future analyses.