Novel progression-associated genes in pancreatic endocrine neoplasms

15516 Background: Pancreatic endocrine tumors/carcinomas (PETs/PECAs) are clinically challenging. With the development of metastases there is significant drop in patient survival. Therefore, detection of progression-associated genes in tumor tissue can have profound prognostic and therapeutic implications. Methods: Five clinically-localized primary (CLP)-PETS from 5 patients (mean age 66; 3M/2F) and 6 metastatic primary (MP)-PECAs and matched liver metastases (MLMs) (N=12) from 6 other patients (mean age 59, 3M/3F) were selected. All tumors were flash frozen within 15 minutes of surgery and macrodissected to achieve 80–98% tumor enrichment. The tumor RNA samples were run on Affymetrix U133 2.0 gene chip. Data were RMA normalized. t-test was used to identify differentially expressed genes in MP-PECAs vs. CLP-PETs and MLMs Vs. MP-PECAs. Based on statistical and pathway analyses, gene function and extensive literature review ‘candidate progression genes’ were selected for validation by immunohistochemistry a...