Gene Expression Differences in MYC and RAS Driven Liver Cancer Transgenic

MYC and RAS signaling are two oncogene pathways important in human liver cancer. We sought to model liver cancer driven by either MYC or RAS using conditional LAP-tTA crossed to either TRE-MYC or TRE-HRAS models in the FVB/N background, and to understand oncogenic signaling pathways that are distinct between each model. Non-tumor tissue, from LAP-tTTA (LT2) mice were used as controls. In this study, we generated tumors from either MYC or RAS driven tumors and compared global gene expression changes to each other and control samples. LAP-tTA (LT2) control, LAP-tTA x TRE-MYC (MYC), or LAP-tTA x TRE-HRAS (RAS) were bred. Tumor initiation was achieved by removing doxycycline from the diet of dual-transgenic mice to allow for MYC or HRAS oncogene expression. Tumors were collected and flash frozen in liquid nitrogen followed by total RNA isolation and Agilent mRNA array analysis. Four tumors or control tissues from each genotype were analyzed.