Identification of breast cancer tumor associated antigens

Four prototypic situations, corresponding to progressive stages of mammary carcinogenesis, were analyzed. Total RNA from whole-mount for 10, 15, 19 and 22 weeks old BALB-neuT animals was extracted. Differential expression between the various prototypic conditions indicates the presence of changing in level of mRNAs due to the increment in the tumor mass (Astolfi et al. Cancer Immunol Immunother 2005, 54:599-610). Since the same amount of RNA is hybridized on all arrays the change in composition of mRNA species associated to the increment of the tumor cellular population allows the tagging as “putative tumor associated antigens” (Cavallo et al. BMC Bioinformatics 2005 6(Suppl 4):S7) for all transcripts progressively up-modulated as the age of the animals increases. Keywords: Disease state analysis Four prototypic situations, corresponding to progressive stages of mammary carcinogenesis, were analyzed. Total RNA from whole-mount for 10 (5 animals), 15 (2 animals), 19 (4 animals) and 22 (4 animals) weeks old BALB-neuT animals was prepared and hybridized on AB1700 mouse arrays.