Microarrays Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Microarrays, including details on experiments, designs, statistics, analysis, software.

Microarray analysis of differentially expressed genes of primary tumors in the canine central nervous system.

Thomson SA, Kennerly E, Olby N, Mickelson JR, Hoffmann DE, Dickinson PJ, Gibson G, Breen M

Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, 4700 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, NC 27606 (USA). Matthew_Breen@ncsu.edu.

The pathophysiologic similarities of many human and canine cancers support the role of the domestic dog as a model for brain tumor research. Here we report the construction of a custom canine brain-specific cDNA microarray and the analysis of gene expression patterns of several different types of canine brain tumor. The microarray contained 4000 clones from a canine brain specific cDNA library including 2161 clones that matched known genes or expressed sequence tags (ESTs) and 25 cancer-related genes. Our study included 16 brain tumors (seven meningiomas, five glial tumors, two ependymomas, and two choroid plexus papillomas) from a variety of different dog breeds. We identified several genes previously found to be differentially expressed in human brain tumors. This suggests that human and canine brain tumors share a common pathogenesis. In addition, we also found differentially expressed genes unique to either meningiomas or the glial tumors. This report represents the first global gene expression analysis of different types of canine brain tumors by cDNA microarrays and might aid in the identification of potential candidate genes involved in tumor formation and progression.

Published 7 September 2005 in Vet Pathol, 42(5): 550-8.
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