Gene Expression Profiling of Murine Melanomas Exhibiting Differential Tumorigenicities

The goal of this study was to compare the gene expression profiles of a highly versus poorly tumorigenic murine melanoma. B16-F1 is a well-characterized murine melanoma cell line that grows progressively in hosts, both as primary tumors in subcutaneous tissue and as metastatic lesions in internal organs. D5.1G4 is a chemically mutated variant of B16 melanoma that grows with significantly slower kinetics than its wild-type counterpart. Whole genome expression microarray analysis of RNA isolated from these murine melanoma lines was performed to provide insights into factors that regulate the growth and metastasis of these tumors, which are useful models for investigating in a murine system the outgrowth, progression, and control of a cancer type that is prevalent in humans worldwide. B16-F1 or D5.1G4 melanoma cells were cultured for 24 hours before isolating RNA for whole genome expression analysis using the Agilent Mouse 4x44K Gene Expression Microarray v2 (Agilent Design ID 026655). Samples were run in replicates of three. D5.1G4 melanoma served as the reference sample, and genes expressed at 2-fold higher or lower levels in B16-F1 (with a p value ≤ 0.05) were defined as genes exhibiting differential expression between the two tumors with statistical significance.