Differentiating pancreatic lesions by microarray and QPCR analysis of pancreatic juice RNAs

BACKGROUND The gene expression profile of pancreatic cancer is significantly different from that of normal pancreas. Differences in gene expression are detectable using microarrays, but microarrays have traditionally been applied to pancreatic cancer tissue obtained from surgical resection. We hypothesized that gene expression alterations indicative of pancreatic cancer can be detected by profiling the RNA of pancreatic juice. METHODS We performed oligonucleotide microarray analysis on RNA isolated from pancreatic juice obtained endoscopically after secretin stimulation from 6 patients with pancreatic cancer and 10 patients with non-neoplastic diseases of the pancreas or upper gastrointestinal tract. Extracted RNA was subjected to two rounds of linear RNA amplification, and then hybridized with U133A or X3P gene chips (Affymetrix).