Profiling gene expression patterns of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and normal nasopharynx tissues with cDNA microarray

5 mu g of total RNAs from normal nasopharynx and nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissue have been labeled with alpha-P-32-dCTP during reverse transcription. The synthesized cDNA probes have been hybridized to high-density cDNA microarray containing 5184 genes or expression sequence tags (ESTs). Then image analysis software has been applied to comparing their expression profiles. Results show that 187 ESTs were of density value above 200 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissue while there were 307 such ESTs in normal nasopharynx tissue; 38 ESTs were strongly expressed in nasopharynx, but weakly expressed in nasopharyngeal carcinoma; 48 ESTs were strongly expressed in nasopharyngeal carcinoma, but weakly expressed in normal nasopharynx. These results suggest that there may exist some new differentially expressed genes involved in nasopharyngeal carcinoma development. Furthermore, the results strongly indicate that high-density cDNA microarray is a powerful and efficient tool for large-scale screening differentially expressed genes.