Expression analysis of juvenile pilocytic astrocytomas by oligonucleotide microarray reveals two potential subgroups.
Juvenile pilocytic astrocytoma (JPA) is one of the most common brain tumors in children. The expression profiles of 21 JPAs, determined using Affymetrix GeneChip U133A, were compared with subjects with normal cerebella. The genes involved in neurogenesis, cell adhesion, synaptic transmission, central nervous system development, potassium ion transport, protein dephosphorylation, and cell differentiation were found to be significantly deregulated in JPA. These 21 JPAs were further clustered into two major groups by unsupervised hierarchical clustering using a set of 848 genes with high covariance (0.5-10). Supervised analysis with Significance Analysis of Microarrays software between these two potential subgroups identified a list of significant differentially expressed genes involved in cell adhesion, regulation of cell growth, cell motility, nerve ensheathment, and angiogenesis. Immunostaining of myelin basic protein on paraffin sections derived from 18 incompletely resected JPAs suggests that JPA without myelin basic protein-positively stained tumor cells may have a higher tendency to progress.
Wong
Kwong-Kwok
KK
Texas Children's Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA. kkwong@bcm.tmc.edu
Chang
Yi-Mieng
YM
Tsang
Yvonne T M
YT
Perlaky
Laszlo
L
Su
Jack
J
Adesina
Adekunle
A
Armstrong
Dawna L
DL
Bhattacharjee
Meenakshi
M
Dauser
Robert
R
Blaney
Susan M
SM
Chintagumpala
Murali
M
Lau
Ching C
CC
D000293:Adolescent; D001254:Astrocytoma / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D001483:Base Sequence; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D017931:DNA Primers; D005260:Female; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
D017931:DNA Primers