BMC Genomics Research article Characterization of the global profile of genes expressed in cervical epithelium by Serial Analysis of Gene Expression (SAGE) Carlos Pérez-Plasencia1, Gregory Riggins2, Guelaguetza Vázquez-Ortiz1, José Moreno3, Hugo Arreola1, Alfredo Hidalgo1, Patricia Piña-Sanchez1 and Mauricio Salcedo*1 Address: 1Laboratorio de Oncología Genómica, Unidad de Investigación Médica en Enfermedades Oncológicas, Hospital de Oncología, CMN Siglo XXI-IMSS, Mexico, 2John Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA and 3Unidad de Investigación Médica en Enfermedades Autoinmunes, Hospital de Especialidades, CMN Siglo XXI-IMSS México Email: Carlos Pérez-Plasencia - car_plas@yahoo.com; Gregory Riggins - griggin1@jhmi.edu; Guelaguetza Vázquez-Ortiz - guelav@yahoo.com; José Moreno - jmorenor@cis.gob.mx; Hugo Arreola - pearl_hugo@yahoo.com.mx; Alfredo Hidalgo - alfhm@yahoo.com; Patricia Piña- Sanchez - patricia_1307@yahoo.com.mx; Mauricio Salcedo* - maosal89@yahoo.com * Corresponding author Published: 19 September 2005 BMC Genomics 2005, 6:130 doi:10.1186/1471-2164-6-130 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/6/130 Received: 31 May 2005 Accepted: 19 September 2005 © 2005 Pérez-Plasencia et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. BioMed Central Open Access Abstract Background: Serial Analysis of Gene Expression (SAGE) is a new technique that allows a detailed and profound quantitative and qualitative knowledge of gene expression profile, without previous knowledge of sequence of analyzed genes. We carried out a modification of SAGE methodology (microSAGE), useful for the analysis of limited quantities of tissue samples, on normal human cervical tissue obtained from a donor without histopathological lesions. Cervical epithelium is constituted mainly by cervical keratinocytes which are the targets of human papilloma virus (HPV), where persistent HPV infection of cervical epithelium is associated with an increase risk for developing cervical carcinomas (CC). Results: We report here a transcriptome analysis of cervical tissue by SAGE, derived from 30,418 sequenced tags that provide a wealth of information about the gene products involved in normal cervical epithelium physiology, as well as genes not previously found in uterine cervix tissue involved in the process of epidermal differentiation. Conclusion: This first comprehensive and profound analysis of uterine cervix transcriptome, should be useful for the identification of genes involved in normal cervix uterine function, and candidate genes associated with cervical carcinoma. Background One of the most frequent malignancies in women world- wide is the Uterine Cervical Carcinoma (CC), both in inci- dence and mortality and the first cause of death among the Mexican female population [1]. High-risk human pap- illomavirus (HPV) persistent infection is considered the most important risk factor associated with the develop- ment of this tumor [2,3]. Although HPV is a mandatory cause for CC, it is not sufficient to trigger all the changes required for its development [4]. Page 1 of 9 (page number not for citation purposes)