Gene expression analyses of ovarian clear cell cancer cell lines

A variety of human cancers demonstrate alterations in microRNA expression. We hypothesized that regulatory defects in microRNAs play a central early role in organizing the molecular changes involved in ovarian cancer (OvCa). Using both gene arrays and deep sequencing, we comprehensively profiled mRNA and microRNA expression, respectively, in human clear cell epithelial OvCa cell lines and short-term primary cultures of normal ovarian surface epithelium. We expected that over-expression of a specific microRNA would lead to lower expression of its mRNA targets, and under-expression of a specific microRNA would lead to higher expression of its target genes. Using our expression data in conjunction with established in silico algorithms, we found putative microRNA:mRNA functional pairs. Keywords: two group comparison; gene expression profiling We generated gene expression profiles of a panel of ten OvCa clear cell cell lines, along with six independent normal ovarian surface epithelium (NOSE) cultures.