Expression profiling in pancreatic cancer research: the initial steps and the road ahead.

A part of living in a new and exciting era for the biologic sciences and medicine, novel high throughput tools allow exploration of the human genome in an unprecedented manner. This "information revolution" is fueled by the study of genome-wide expression profiles for complex biologic and pathophysiologic conditions using DNA arrays, as well as the development and use of robust bioinformatic algorithms. Meticulous translational experiments are becoming possible because of the development of efficient DNA printing technology for producing high-density microarrays.

Characterization of FRA6E and its potential role in autosomal recessive juvenile parkinsonism and ovarian cancer.

Characterization of FRA6E (6q26), the third most frequently observed common fragile site (CFS) in the human population, determined that aphidicolin-induced instability at FRA6E extends over a very large region (3.6 Mb). Sequence analysis identified eight genes (IGF2R, SLC22A1, SLC22A2, SLC22A3, PLG, LPA, MAP3K4, and PARK2) as mapping within the large FRA6E region.

Characterization of the common fragile site FRA9E and its potential role in ovarian cancer.

Common fragile sites (CFSs) are regions of profound genomic instability that have been hypothesized to play a role in cancer. The major aim of this study was to locate a fragile region associated with ovarian cancer. Differential display (DD)-PCR analysis comparing normal ovarian epithelial cultures and ovarian cancer cell lines identified pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A (PAPPA) because of its frequent loss of expression (LOE) in ovarian cancer cell lines.