An ultrasensitive new DNA microarray chip provides gene expression profiles for preoperative esophageal cancer biopsies without RNA amplification.
OBJECTIVE
Gene expression profiling using pretreatment biopsies has been limited due to their small sample sizes. This study evaluated the usefulness of an ultrasensitive new DNA microarray chip, which has a unique array structure, for the clinical diagnosis of esophageal cancer using preoperative biopsies.


METHODS
Paired cancer and normal esophageal epithelial tissues from 56 patients who underwent esophagectomy and from 48 patients who underwent preoperative endoscopy were studied. Among 2 feature gene sets selected by a reference DNA chip discriminating malignant status of samples, 20 feature genes were selected for the development of the new DNA chip. The new DNA chip was hybridized with 0.1 mug of total RNA per slide without RNA amplification.


RESULTS
Twenty feature genes, including RRM-2 and XRCC-3, for the new DNA chip could discriminate cancer from noncancer at a 95.2% rate of accuracy in 42 biopsies (sensitivity 95.7%, specificity 94.7%). A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that the area under ROC curve for the prediction was 0.966.


CONCLUSIONS
The gene expression profiles from the preoperative biopsies could diagnose esophageal cancer accurately, using the ultrasensitive DNA chip without RNA amplification. This new DNA chip technology might contribute further to the development of customized therapeutic strategies for various cancer patients.
Ito
Tetsuo
T
Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Tanaka
Eiji
E
Kadowaki
Tadashi
T
Kan
Takatsugu
T
Higashiyama
Motoshige
M
Shiojima
Satoshi
S
Tomoda
Shiori
S
Myoumoto
Akira
A
Akiyama
Hideo
H
Nobumasa
Hitoshi
H
Matsumoto
Shigemi
S
Miyamoto
Shinichi
S
Mitsumori
Michihide
M
Sato
Fumiaki
F
Watanabe
Go
G
Itami
Atsushi
A
Meltzer
Stephen J
SJ
Tsujimoto
Gozoh
G
Shimada
Yutaka
Y
D000368:Aged; D001706:Biopsy; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery*; D016629:Esophagectomy; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D011300:Preoperative Care; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
D004273:DNA, Neoplasm; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm