[Gene apoptosis expression profiles in liver cancer and their comparison to normal peri-cancerous liver tissues].

OBJECTIVE: To describe a few gene expression profiles related to apoptosis and to demonstrate their difference between the liver cancer and its adjacent normal tissues. METHODS: cDNA, labeled as a-32P dATP was synthesized from the total RNA of cancer and adjacent normal tissues and, then, hybridized individually with two identical array membranes of Atlas human cancer dDNA expression containing 588 known genes. The method involving gene-specific semi-quantitative reverse transcription in the polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to confirm the expression pattern of three known genes. RESULTS: Autoradiographic results were analyzed by specific AtlasImage (version 1.01a) software. Among 69 genes that were found to be related to apoptosis, 4 were up-related, including Aktl, and 19 were down-related, including BAK, Caspase-3, etc., all being related to cancer. The RT-PCR results showed that the expression pattern of all genes was in agreement with the results of Atlas expression array. CONCLUSION: The result obtained from Atlas microarray provides a liver cancer-specific expression profile related to apoptosis. The discovery about the apoptosis related genes may yield some clues on the oncogenetic mechanism of liver cancer in the future. The differential hybridization technique of cDNA expression array involving the Atlas human cancer can become a useful method in the understanding of the development and progression of human cancer.