Molecular alterations in pancreatic carcinoma: expression profiling shows that dysregulated expression of S100 genes is highly prevalent.

In order to expand our understanding of the molecular changes underlying the complex pathology of pancreatic malignancy, global gene expression profiling of pancreatic adenocarcinoma compared with normal pancreatic tissue was performed. Human cDNA arrays comprising 9932 elements were interrogated with fluorescence-labelled normal and adenocarcinoma samples (nine tumours, three normal pancreata, and three cell lines). The data were analysed for differential gene expression, which was confirmed by serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE), digital differential display (DDD) analysis, and immunohistochemistry for selected cases.