Microarray Analysis of Colorectal Cancer

The microarray analysis of tumors that originate in solid organs, such as the lung, bowel, breast, ovary, and pancreas, offers special challenges and opportunities. The challenges lie in the complexity and heterogeneity of the normal and abnormal tissues of which these tumors are composed. The opportunities derive from the generally poor response to therapy displayed by these lesions and the early evidence that global expression analysis may provide the substrate for a new predictive taxonomy of cancer. Colorectal cancer has been extensively profiled at the DNA, histopathological, and clinical levels, and several groups have now added results from arrayed-based surveys of gene expression. Even so, it is not yet possible to offer a comprehensive correlation of these disparate sources of information. Doing so will be the work of the next generation of microarray science and bioinformatics.