Comprehensive serial analysis of gene expression of the cervical transcriptome.
BACKGROUND
More than half of the approximately 500,000 women diagnosed with cervical cancer worldwide each year will die from this disease. Investigation of genes expressed in precancer lesions compared to those expressed in normal cervical epithelium will yield insight into the early stages of disease. As such, establishing a baseline from which to compare to, is critical in elucidating the abnormal biology of disease. In this study we examine the normal cervical tissue transcriptome and investigate the similarities and differences in relation to CIN III by Long-SAGE (L-SAGE).


RESULTS
We have sequenced 691,390 tags from four L-SAGE libraries increasing the existing gene expression data on cervical tissue by 20 fold. One-hundred and eighteen unique tags were highly expressed in normal cervical tissue and 107 of them mapped to unique genes, most belong to the ribosomal, calcium-binding and keratinizing gene families. We assessed these genes for aberrant expression in CIN III and five genes showed altered expression. In addition, we have identified twelve unique HPV 16 SAGE tags in the CIN III libraries absent in the normal libraries.


CONCLUSIONS
Establishing a baseline of gene expression in normal cervical tissue is key for identifying changes in cancer. We demonstrate the utility of this baseline data by identifying genes with aberrant expression in CIN III when compared to normal tissue.
Shadeo
Ashleen
A
Cancer Genetics & Developmental Biology, British Columbia Cancer Research Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada. ashadeo@bccrc.ca
Chari
Raj
R
Vatcher
Greg
G
Campbell
Jennifer
J
Lonergan
Kim M
KM
Matisic
Jasenka
J
van Niekerk
Dirk
D
Ehlen
Thomas
T
Miller
Dianne
D
Follen
Michele
M
Lam
Wan L
WL
MacAulay
Calum
C
D002584:Cervix Uteri / Q000378:metabolism*; D004848:Epithelium / Q000378:metabolism; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D015723:Gene Library; D016679:Genome, Viral; D052162:Human papillomavirus 16 / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D009928:Organ Specificity / Q000235:genetics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014158:Transcription, Genetic; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics; D002578:Uterine Cervical Dysplasia / Q000235:genetics