Differentially expressed genes in association with in vitro invasiveness of human epithelioid sarcoma

Aims-Differential display reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction ( RT-PCR) was performed to identify genes associated with the invasive potent ial of human epithelioid sarcoma. Methods-Two different clonal subpopulations, GRU-1A and GRU-1B, derived fro m the same human epithelioid sarcoma cell line GRU-1 and known to differ gr eatly in their invasive potential were compared by means of mRNA fingerprin ting. Results-Using a set of 10 arbitrary upstream primers and nine anchored olig o-dT primers, 22 candidate gene fragments were identified; differential exp ression was confirmed in four of these fragments by northern blot analysis. At the mRNA level, apoferritin light chain was predominantly expressed by the highly invasive cell line GRU-1A. In contrast, the mitochondrial gene M l, encoding cytochrome c oxidase I, and the TI-227H gene were expressed mor e strongly by the low invasive cell line GRU-1B. Furthermore, a novel gene fragment was identified and cloned that was preferentially expressed in the low invasive cell line GRU-1B, and therefore might have an inhibitory role in invasion. Consequently, this gene fragment was designated as expressed in low invasive sarcoma cells (ELISC-1). Conclusions-A novel gene fragment (ELISC-1) and three known genes were iden tified as potential regulators of tumour invasiveness. Cloning of the entir e sequence of ELISC-1 and subsequent investigations are required to establi sh its biological role.