MSK MetTropism (MSK, Cell 2021)
MSK-MET (Memorial Sloan Kettering - Metastatic Events and Tropisms) is a pan-cancer cohort of tumor genomic and clinical outcome data from 25,000 patients. The dataset identifies associations between tumor genomic alterations and patterns of metastatic dissemination across 50 tumor types; showing that chromosomal instability is strongly correlated with metastatic burden in some tumor types, like prostate and lung adenocarcinomas and HR+/HER2+ breast ductal carcinoma, but not in others, such as colorectal MSS, pancreatic adenocarcinoma and high-grade serous ovarian cancer. The study also identifies somatic alterations associated with increased metastatic burden and routes of metastatic spread. Our data offers a resource for the investigation of the biologic basis for metastatic spread and highlights the role of chromosomal instability in cancer progression. This data is available under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
Can it answer your research question?
2 of 6 supportedOverall survival
SupportedVital status and time are populated; median follow-up 1.4 years; 25,659 cases with follow-up; endpoint: overall survival.API
Progression or recurrence
Not measuredThis field was not among those probed for this repository.
Treatment response
Not supportedNo treatment response is recorded in the harmonized records.API
Which drug was given
Not measuredThis field was not among those probed for this repository.
Stage-adjusted modelling
Not measuredThis field was not among those probed for this repository.
Analysis by race or ethnicity
SupportedRACE is informative for 94% of cases.API
At a glance
Every percentage is the repository’s own record of what is filled inSubjectCALC
As filed by the repository
Who is in the cohortAPI
- Sex13,485 Female · 12,286 Male · 4 no value recorded
- Race20,263 White · 1,787 Asian-far east/indian subcont · 1,597 Black or african american · 641 3 other · 903 Pt refused to answer · 396 No value entered · 111 Unknown · 77 no value recorded
- Vital status15,606 LIVING · 10,169 DECEASED
What was measured, and on how many
- Mutation calls (panel, exome or genome)25,775 of 25,775 samples · 100%
- Copy number alterations25,775 of 25,775 samples · 100%
- Structural variants / fusions
How complete all 6 clinical fields are - 6 informative for at least 80% of cases
Access
Processed data download from the cBioPortal study page or its public REST API; no account required. Primary raw data remain wherever the original investigators deposited them.
- Open components
- harmonized mutation, copy-number, expression and clinical files
- License
- Per-study terms; cBioPortal asks that the original study be cited
- Citation requirement
- Cite the original publication, and cite cBioPortal if the portal's harmonized files were used.
What it is good for
Written and checked by a reviewer, not generated from metadata.
No reviewed research questions yet. The measurements and field completeness above are machine-extracted and still useful for judging fit.
What it cannot tell you
Written by a reviewer against the source, not inferred from what is missing.
No reviewed limitations yet. Check the field completeness chart above before committing to an analysis. Low coverage on an endpoint you need is the most common blocker.
Who has used it
Articles that analyzed these data, counted separately from articles that only cited the paper. Only the first counts as reuse.
- Not assessed: this dataset has no accession specific enough for citation-based reuse tracing, so a shortfall cannot be measured.
Original publication
Articles that analyzed the data
Not searchable. See the note above.
Community examples
Share your exampleAnalyses someone ran on these data end to end, each with a receipt recording when it ran, against which packages and for how long.
Nobody has shared an analysis of this dataset yet. The examples on other datasets cover the common patterns and can be adapted - and if you adapt one, it belongs here.
Start here
Starter code generated from this record’s own identifiers, then the access steps.
Get the data in code
cBioPortal: clinical data and the full study bundlepython
import requests, pandas as pd
STUDY = "msk_met_2021"
base = "https://www.cbioportal.org/api"
clin = requests.get(f"{base}/studies/{STUDY}/clinical-data",
params={"clinicalDataType": "PATIENT", "projection": "SUMMARY"}, timeout=60).json()
patients = pd.DataFrame(clin).pivot_table(index="patientId", columns="clinicalAttributeId",
values="value", aggfunc="first")
print(patients.shape)
profiles = requests.get(f"{base}/studies/{STUDY}/molecular-profiles", timeout=60).json()
print([p["molecularProfileId"] for p in profiles])
# Whole study as flat files: https://cbioportal-datahub.s3.amazonaws.com/msk_met_2021.tar.gzThis page as data: limitations firstbash
curl -s https://cd2s.vercel.app/data/datasets/cbio-msk-met-2021.json | python3 -c '
import json, sys
r = json.load(sys.stdin)
for l in r["limitations"]:
print(l["severity"].upper(), "-", l["statement"][:120])
print("survival endpoint:", r["longitudinal"]["has_survival_endpoint"], "| treatment response:", r["longitudinal"]["has_treatment_response"])'Access steps
- Open the study in cBioPortalFor people
Harmonized molecular and clinical files are open. Cite the original publication, and cite cBioPortal if the portal's harmonized files were used.
https://www.cbioportal.org/study/summary?id=msk_met_2021 - Download the whole study as a zipFor people
The datasets page carries the staging files used by the portal.
https://www.cbioportal.org/datasets - Or pull the staging files with git-lfsFor people
Study folders are named by study id under public/.
https://github.com/cBioPortal/datahubgit clone https://github.com/cBioPortal/datahub.git && cd datahub git -c lfs.fetchexclude="" lfs pull -I public/msk_met_2021 - Read the study straight from the REST APIFor agents
No key is required; pace requests when sweeping many studies.
https://docs.cbioportal.org/web-api-and-clients/curl -s 'https://www.cbioportal.org/api/studies/msk_met_2021/clinical-data?clinicalDataType=PATIENT&projection=SUMMARY'
Provenance
All of it, and more, is in this record’s JSON.
Identifiers
- cBioPortal studymsk_met_2021API
Versions and verification
- Metadata retrieved
- 18 Sept 2026
- Review status
- Machine-extracted
- Data generation funding
- Funded data generation
Funding
Funded data generation
- U01CA252048Understanding and targeting MAPK pathway activation in NF1-deficient malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (MPNST)Ping ChiAPI
- R37CA266185Mechanisms of Dynamic Transcriptional Reprogramming in Metastasis Stem CellsKaruna GaneshAPI
- R01CA256188Probing cytosolic nucleic acid sensing pathways in cancerAshley Marie Laughney, Samuel F BakhoumAPI
- R01CA234361Defining mechanisms of resistance to hormonal therapy in breast cancerSarat Chandarlapaty, David B. SolitAPI
- R01CA228216Epigenetic mechanisms of transcriptional activation of a novel oncogenic ALK variant in cancerPing ChiAPI
- P50CA247749MSK SPORE in Genomic Instability in Breast CancerSimon N. Powell, Sohrab P ShahAPI
- P50CA221745Biospecimen Repository CoreHikmat Al-Ahmadie, David B. SolitAPI
- P50CA217694Project 3: Identifying Targetable Epigenetic and Immuno-Oncologic Vulnerabilities in Synovial SarcomaMarc Ladanyi, SAMUEL SINGERAPI
- P50CA140146Biostatistics/Bioinformatics CoreLi-Xuan Qin, SAMUEL SINGERAPI
- P30CA008748Antitumor AssessmentElisa de Stanchina, FRANCESCA M GANYAPI