Microarray expression data from FVB mice with induced hepatoblastoma (liver tumors)

Hepatoblastoma (HB) is the most common pediatric liver tumor, and there are no targeted therapies available for children with HB. We have previously developed a murine model of HB which is driven by coactivation of the oncogenes YAP1 and β-catenin (CTNNB1) [Tao J, Calvisi D, Ranganathan S, et al. Gastroenterology, 2014 Sep; 147(3): 690–701]. We used the Sleeping Beauty transposase system combined with hydrodynamic tail vein injection to deliver plasmids containing mutant activated forms of YAP1 (YAP S127A) and β-catenin (ΔN90 β-catenin) to a small number of pericentral hepatocytes. We have shown that these few transformed hepatocytes proliferate and dedifferentiate, eventually forming histologically heterogeneous tumors that resemble various subtypes of human HB (which is also highly heterogeneous), including areas of well-differentiated fetal, crowded fetal, embryonal, and blastemal HB. Our goal was to investigate how coactivation of YAP1 and β-catenin drive the dedifferentiation of hepatocytes into hepatoblast-like tumor cells over time, leading to HB tumors. In order to measure changes in gene expression during tumorigenesis in our model, we used an Affymetrix microarray to analyze isolated RNA from wild type FVB mouse livers and tissue from livers laden with late-stage HB tumors. We extracted RNA from wild type liver tissue from FVB mice (3 biological replicates), and liver tissue from FVB mice laden with late-stage HB liver tumors in our mouse model (3 biological replicates).