Gene Expression profiling of Myc-induced lymphomagenesis

The ability of oncogenes to provoke cancer is harnessed by regulators that control cell proliferation or induce apoptosis, and bypass of these checkpoints is a hallmark of malignancies. Myc oncoproteins are overexpressed in ~70% of all cancers and induce numerous transcription targets that regulate cell growth, metabolism, and the ribosome machinery. We used the Eμ-Myc mouse model from which one can directly compare expression profiles of wild type versus Myc-expressing B220+ pre-malignant lymphocytes and also queried differences in gene expression that ensue following the neoplastic switch to lymphoma (Nilsson et al., 2005 - PMID:15894264 and Keller et al. 2010 - PMID:20598117). Wild type and precancerous Eμ-Myc transgenic B cells (from 4-6 week old littermates), and lymphomas from 13 independent Eμ-Myc mice were investigated. These samples were used for subsequent RNA purification, labeling and hybridization to MOE430A Affymetrix arrays.