Expression data from sentinel lymph node RNA of stage III melanoma patients

To identify a panel of Seninel Lymph Node (SLN) genes to aid in risk stratification of patients with tumor-positive SLN, total SLN RNA from 97 SLN-positive melanoma patients were chosen from the Sunbelt Melanoma Trial. Microarray experiments were performed to screen SLN genes in recurrence (=39) versus non-recurrence (=58) group. We identified 20 differentially expressed SLN genes in the recurrence vs. the non-recurrence group. Total RNA from sentinel lymph nodes were isolated using TRIREAGENT according to the manufacturer’s guidelines. RNA was quantified using Nanodrop ND-1000. The integrity of these total RNAs was assessed using Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer. Total high-quality RNA was converted to cDNA, transcribed and labelled, and then hybridized to human HG-U133 plus 2 arrays (Affymetrix) then scanned according to the standard protocol recommended by Affymetrix.