FPIA: A database for gene fusion profiling and interactive analyses

As one of the hallmarks of cancer, gene fusions play an important role in tumorigenesis, and have been established as biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Although recent years have witnessed the development of gene fusion databases, a tool with interactive analytic functions remains lacking. Here, we introduce fusion profiling interactive analysis (FPIA), a web server to perform interactive and customizable analysis on fusion genes. With this platform, researchers can easily explore fusion‐associated biological and molecular differences including gene expression, tumor purity and ploidy, mutation, copy number variations, protein expression, immune cell infiltration, stemness, telomere length, microsatellite instability, survival and novel peptides based on 33 cancer types from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data. Currently, it contains 31 633 fusion events from 6910 patients. FPIA complements the existing gene fusion annotation databases with its multiomics analytic capacity, integrated analysis features, customized analysis selection and user‐friendly design. The comprehensive data analyses by FPIA will greatly facilitate data mining, hypothesis generation and therapeutic target discovery. FPIA is available at http://bioinfo-sysu.com/fpia. What's new? While databases exist for functional annotation of cancer‐associated fusion genes, customizable analyses to address questions regarding whole transcriptome effects and other factors relevant to understanding the role of fusion genes in cancer are lacking. Here, the authors developed an interactive, web‐based tool, called fusion profiling interactive analysis (FPIA), that allows for highly customizable analysis. FPIA permits fusion‐related exploration of various features, including gene expression, mutation and patient survival. The authors further describe the identification of novel fusion‐derived peptides using FPIA. Analyses indicate that FPIA facilitates not only data mining and hypothesis generation but also the discovery of potential therapeutic targets.