Malignancy-associated regions of transcriptional activation: gene expression profiling identifies common chromosomal regions of a recurrent transcriptional activation in human prostate, breast, ovarian, and colon cancers.
Despite remarkable advances in our understanding of a genetic basis of cancer, the precise molecular definition of the phenotypically relevant genetic features associated with human epithelial malignancies remains a significant and highly relevant challenge. Here we performed a systematic analysis of the chromosomal positions of cancer-associated transcripts for prostate, breast, ovarian, and colon tumors, and identified short segments of human chromosomes that appear to represent a common target for transcriptional activation in major epithelial malignancies in human. These cancer-associated transcriptomeres correspond well to the regions of transient transcriptional activity on chromosomes 1q21-q23 (144-160 Mbp), 12q13 (52-63 Mbp), 17q21 (38-50 Mbp), 17q23-q25 (72-82 Mbp), 19p13 (1-16 Mbp), and Xq28 (132-142 Mbp) during human cell cycle, suggesting a common epigenetic mechanism of transcriptional activation. Consistent with this idea, two of these transcriptomeres (12q13 and 17q21) seemed to be related to the p53-regulated transcriptional clusters, and some of the cancer-associated transcriptomeres appeared to correspond well to the recently identified regions of increased gene expression on human chromosomes.
Glinsky
Gennadi V
GV
Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, 10835 Altman Row, San Diego, CA 92121, USA. gglinsky@skcc.org
Krones-Herzig
Anja
A
Glinskii
Anna B
AB
D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D003110:Colonic Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000032:analysis; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015533:Transcriptional Activation / Q000235:genetics*
D012333:RNA, Messenger