Expression Profiling of Adult Male Germ Cell Tumors

Expression profiling of a panel of 101 adult male germ cell tumors and 5 normal testis specimens was performed on Affymetrix U133A and U133B microarrays. This data has been used to: 1) generate a gene classifier that predicts histology (see PMID 15870693). 2) identify candidate target genes on 12p, a region that is gained in almost 100% of germ cell tumors (see PMID 16424014) 3) identify pluripotency associated genes through comparison of pluripotent embryonal carcinoma vs. undifferentiated seminoma. ONGOING: 4) Identification of genes associated with patient outcome and cisplatin resistance. Keywords: germ cell tumor, histologic subtypes Tumor tissues were collected under IRB-approved protocols at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, between 1987 and 1999. The tumor samples consist of 17 seminomas, 15 pure EC, 15 pure T, 10 pure YS, 2 pure CC, and 42 NSGCT with mixed histologies. There were six patients who had each had two tumors per patient that were included in this study (designated with the same number but different letter- e.g. 155A and 155C are from same patient but represent two different tumors, one being the primary testicular lesion, the other being a liver metastasis). Five normal testis specimens (and one pooled sample consisting of equal amounts of the 5 normal testis specimens) from individual of similar ages were used as controls.