The use of expression profiling to study pigment cell biology and dysfunction.
Regulation of gene expression is a fundamental process by which cells respond to both intracellular and extracellular signals. For a pigment cell, alterations in gene expression regulate the processes of cell migration, lineage restriction, differentiation, type of pigment produced, and progression from a normal pigment cell to that of melanoma. To date, the identification of genes involved in normal pigment cell development has been accomplished by the cloning of individual mutant alleles, a single gene at a time. Current advances in technology have now made it possible to use expression profile analysis to investigate, on a genomic scale, the process of pigment cell development and function. This review compares and contrasts the methods of subtractive suppressive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and differential display with that of cDNA microarray analysis.
Loftus
S K
SK
Mouse Embryology Section, Genetic Disease Research Branch, National Human Genome Institute Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
Pavan
W J
WJ
D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000235:genetics; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000032:analysis; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods*; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006801:Humans; D008544:Melanocytes / Q000502:physiology*; D008545:Melanoma / Q000235:genetics; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis / Q000379:methods; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000032:analysis; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
D018076:DNA, Complementary; D012333:RNA, Messenger