Article
Common denominator genes that distinguish colorectal carcinoma from normal mucosa
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Published: | March 20, 2006 |
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Outline
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Purpose: Microarray technology has been used by a growing number of investigators and several studies have been published which list hundreds of genes differentially expressed by colorectal carcinoma (CRC) and normal mucosa (MC). On the basis of our own and other investigators´ microarray data, our goal was to identify a common denominator gene cluster distinguishing CRC from MC.
Methods: Thirty GeneChips (HG-U133A, Affymetrix) were hybridized, twenty with RNA of CRC stages I-IV (UICC) and ten with MC. Expression signals showing at least a 4 fold difference between CRC and MC (p<0.01) were identified as differentially expressed. In addition, in our integrative data analysis approach only those genes whose expression was altered simultaneously in at least two of five recently published studies were subjected to an unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis.
Results: We detected 168 up- and 283 down- regulated genes in CRC relative to MC. Twenty-three genes were filtered from the five articles reviewed. An unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis of these 23 genes confirmed the high specificity of these genes to differentiate between CRC and MC in our microarray data.
Conclusions: CRC and MC could be clearly separated by 23 genes selected for being differentially expressed more than once in a recent literature review. These genes represent a common denominator gene cluster which can be used to distinguish colorectal MC from CRC.