Collections of minimal gene sets for human, mouse and rat as well as indication-specific sets for oncology, immunology, haematology, and toxicology have been collected and characterised. These clone sets are made available as high density filter arrays, together with accompanying database information. Furthermore, we plan to provide courses to introduce the users of RZPD to different kinds of analysis tools for expression profiling using these gene sets. A genome wide project is underway to further improve the target material for expression profiling. The use of whole genome expression profiling in cancer research will be shown.
Cancer cells are genetically different from normal cells, and exhibit aberrant gene expression.
Knowledge of the changes in gene expression typical for certain types and stages of tumours, could give insight into the molecular changes involved in tumour development and progression, and provide molecular markers for tumour diagnosis and prognosis. Array expression data for renal clear cell carcinomas confirmed overexpression of several genes known to be upregulated in renal carcinomas, e.g. VEGF, vimentin, and haptoglobin. In addition, ESTs similar to angiopoietin, and ESTs without homologies were found. We will compare hybridizations using whole tissue tumour and normal cDNAs with suppression subtraction cDNAs, with the aim to increase the sensitivity. Linking the tumour hybridisation data with histopathological and clinical data in a queryable relational database will allow correlation of gene expression and tumour characteristics.