Chromosome 17 genes with abnormal expression identified.

2004 DEC 2 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A number of chromosome 17 genes with altered expression in breast cancer have been identified.

"Chromosome 17 is severely rearranged in breast cancer," oncologists in France explained. "Whereas the short arm undergoes frequent losses, the long arm harbors complex combinations of gains and losses."

B. Orsetti and colleagues at the University of Montpellier I conducted "a comprehensive study of quantitative anomalies at chromosome 17 by genomic array-comparative genomic hybridization and of associated RNA expression changes by cDNA arrays."

"We built a genomic array covering the entire chromosome at an average density of 1 clone per 0.5 Mb, and patterns of gains and losses were characterized in 30 breast cancer cell lines and 22 primary tumors," the collaborators wrote in the journal Cancer Research. "Genomic profiles indicated severe rearrangements."

"Compiling data from all samples, we subdivided chromosome 17 into 13 consensus segments: four regions showing mainly losses, six regions showing mainly gains, and three regions showing either gains or losses," published data indicated. "Within these segments, smallest regions of overlap were defined (17 for gains and 16 for losses)," and "[e]xpression profiles were analyzed by means of cDNA arrays comprising 358 known genes at 17q."

"Comparison of expression changes with quantitative ...