Gene cataloging and expression profiling in human gastric cancer cells by expressed sequence tags

To understand the molecular mechanism associated with gastric carcinogenesis, we identified genes expressed in gastric cancer cell lines and tissues. Of 97,609 high-quality ESTs sequenced from 36 cDNA libraries, 92,545 were coalesced into 10,418 human Unigene clusters (Build 151). The gene expression profile was produced by counting the cluster frequencies in each library. Although the profiles of highly expressed genes varied greatly from library to library, those genes related to cell structure formation, heat shock proteins, the glycolysis pathway, and the signaling pathway were highly represented in human gastric cancer cell lines and in primary tumors. Conversely, the genes encoding immunoglobulins, ribosomal proteins, and digestive proteins were down-regulated in gastric cancer cell lines and tissues compared to normal tissues. The transcription levels of some of these genes were confirmed by RT-PCR. We found that genes related to cell adhesion, apoptosis, and cytoskeleton formation were particularly tip-regulated in the gastric cancer cell lines established from malignant ascites compared to those from primary tumors. This comprehensive molecular profiling of human gastric cancer should be useful for elucidating the genetic events associated with human gastric cancer. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.