Gene expression profiling of prostate cancer (PCa) and normal prostatic samples

Prostate cancer tissue samples containing at least 70% of neoplastic cells were obtained from patients (age range: 50–75 years) who had undergone radical prostatectomy at the Hospital of Biella (Italy) and prostate biopsies were obtained from healthy patients of the same age range, without any diagnosis of prostate tumor or BPH. Gene expression profiling was performed using Human Gene Expression 8 × 60K Microarray, Agilent Technologies. 14 samples from normal prostate and 54 from prostate cancer from Caucasian men were analyzed for gene expression profiling