title: Differential gene expression profiling in blood from patients with digestive system cancers.
abstract: To develop a non-invasive and sensitive diagnostic test for cancer using peripheral blood, we evaluated gene expression profiling of blood obtained from patients with cancer of the digestive system and normal subjects. The expression profiles of blood-derived total RNA obtained from 39 cancer patients (11 colon cancer, 14 gastric cancer, and 14 pancreatic cancer) was clearly different from those obtained from 15 normal subjects. By comparing the gene expression profiles of cancer patients and normal subjects, 25 cancer-differentiating genes (p<5.0 x 10(-6) and fold differences >3) were identified and an "expression index" deduced from the expression values of these genes differentiated the validation cohort (11 colon cancer, 8 gastric cancer, 18 pancreatic cancer, and 15 normal subjects) into cancer patients and normal subjects with 100% (37/37) and 87% (13/15) accuracy, respectively. Although, the expression profiles were not clearly different between the cancer patients, some characteristic genes were identified according to the stage and species of the cancer. Interestingly, many immune-related genes such as antigen presenting, cell cycle accelerating, and apoptosis- and stress-inducing genes were up-regulated in cancer patients, reflecting the active turnover of immune regulatory cells in cancer patients. These results showed the potential relevance of peripheral blood gene expression profiling for the development of new diagnostic examination tools for cancer patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Graduate School of Medicine, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Masao
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Honda
authors.forename: Yoshio
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sakai
authors.forename: Taro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamashita
authors.forename: Tatsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamashita
authors.forename: Akito
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sakai
authors.forename: Eishiro
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mizukoshi
authors.forename: Yasunari
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakamoto
authors.forename: Isamu
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tatsumi
authors.forename: Yoshitaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Miyazaki
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tanno
authors.forename: Shuichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kaneko
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004067:Digestive System Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis