Gene expression profiling of HhAntag-treated pancreatic xenografts

Four vehicle-treated and four HhAntag-treated pancreatic xenograft tumors were profiled for gene expression changes using Affymetrix U133 Plus 2.0 and Affymetrix Mouse Genome 430 2.0 arrays. Keywords: comparative gene expression, hedgehog, hh A primary human pancreatic tumor xenograft (1051178-A) was established by direct implantation of surgical material into female CD1 nu/nu mice of 6-8 weeks of age. Tumors were serially passaged into larger cohorts of mice for efficacy testing and subsequently distributed into tumor volume-matched cohorts upon tumors reaching between 200 to 350 mm3. HhAntag was resuspended in 0.5% methyl-cellulose, 0.2% Tween-80 (MCT) and administered orally twice daily at 75 mg/kg from a 10 mg/ml suspension. MCT alone served as vehicle control. Tumor xenografts (4/group) were excised following 21 days of dosing and RNA was extracted. Preparation of complementary RNA, Human Genome U133 Plus 2.0 array and Mouse Genome 430 2.0 array hybridizations, and subsequent data analysis were carried out using Affymetrix protocols, with signal intensities being determined by the MAS5.0 algorithm.