Establishing a set of genes differentially expressed in benign versus malignant adrenocortical cells

Models for tumorigenesis can be made by transforming normal cells with defined genetic elements. This allows us to determine that adrenocortical tumor development and progression follows a multistep model. Morever, we demonstrated that the order of genetic events has a great consequence on the phenotype of the resultant tumor. We performed transcriptomic analysis using cDNA microarrays to identify the molecular signature that might explain the distinctive in vivo phenotypes observed in response to both orders of the mutational events. Two p53+Ras two pBabe +pLNCX2 (control for the p53+Ras cells), three Ras+p53 and two pLNCX2+pBabe (control for Ras+p53 cells) cell populations were prepared and used for microarray analysis;