Identification of tumor markers in models of human colorectal cancer usinga 19,200-element complementary DNA microarray

Metastasis represents a crucial transition in disease development and progr ession and has a profound impact on survival for a wide variety of cancers. Cell line models of metastasis have played an important role in developing our understanding of the metastatic process. We used a 19,200-element huma n cDNA microarray to profile transcription in three paired cell-line models of colorectal tumor metastasis. By correlating expression patterns across these cell lines, we have identified 176 genes that appear to be differenti ally expressed (greater than 2-fold) in all highly metastatic cell lines re lative to their reference. An analysis of these genes reiterates much of ou r understanding of the metastatic process and suggests additional genes, ma ny of previously uncharacterized function, that may be causatively involved in, or at least prognostic of, metastasis. Northern analysis of a limited number of these genes validates the observed pattern of expression and sugg ests that further investigation and functional characterization of the iden tified genes is warranted.