Diagnostic System for Biological Characteristics of Cancer by Genome Microarray

人们普遍认为癌症的发生是细胞核内基因畸变积累的结果。为了了解肿瘤的生物学特性，对肿瘤进行有效的治疗，有必要对肿瘤细胞的基因组变化进行全面的分析。肿瘤在生物学行为（恶性程度）上表现出很大的差异，称为肿瘤异质性。然而，目前还没有可靠的方法来评估肿瘤的生物学特性。在本项目中，我们为开发基因组微阵列系统检测肿瘤细胞基因组畸变做了基础研究。用DNA基因组芯片检测肝细胞癌和食管鳞状细胞癌中57个癌基因的DNA拷贝数的增加。这些数据已发表在科学杂志上或准备发表一篇论文。我们正在努力开发一种软件，用于分析从基因组微阵列获得的数据。通过比较基因组杂交分析的数据提取来鉴定与致癌有关的基因，以开发基因组微阵列。事实上，BAC序列已经设置为感兴趣的染色体位点，基因组阵列正在准备中。

It is widely accepted that the development of cancer results from the accumulation of gene aberrations in cellular nucleus. In order to understand the biological characteristics of tumors and to perform the effective treatment for tumors, it is necessary to make a comprehensive analysis of genomic changes in tumor cells. Cancer shows great variation in biological behavior (the degree of malignancy) as known as tumor heterogeneity. At present, however, there are no reliable methods to estimate biological characteristics of tumor. In this project, we made basic study for developing a genome microarray system to detect aberrations in genome of tumor cells.1. The increase in DNA copy number was examined by DNA genome microarray spotted with 57 oncogenes in hepatocellular carcinoma and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. These data have been publised in scientific journal or a paper was prepared for publication.2. We are trying to develop software for analysis of data obtained from genome microarray.3. The identification of genes involved in carcinogenesis is being tried by data extraction from comparative genomic hybridization analysis for developing genome microarray. Indeed, BAC contig have set for the interested chromosomal loci and genome array is being prepared.