Gene expression analysis of ovarian serous adenocarcinoma cell lines and tumors

A variety of human cancers demonstrate alterations in microRNA expression. We hypothesized that regulatory defects in microRNAs play a central early role in organizing the molecular changes involved in ovarian cancer (OvCa). Using both gene arrays and deep sequencing, we comprehensively profiled mRNA and microRNA expression, respectively, in human serous epithelial OvCa cell lines, serous tumors, and short-term primary cultures of normal ovarian surface epithelium (NOSE). We expected that over-expression of a specific microRNA would lead to lower expression of its mRNA targets, and under-expression of a specific microRNA would lead to higher expression of its target genes. Using our expression data in conjunction with established in silico algorithms, we found putative microRNA:mRNA functional pairs. Keywords: two group comparison We generated gene expression profiles of a panel of seven OvCa serous cell lines, 17 serous tumors, and nine independent normal ovarian surface epithelium (NOSE) cultures. We defined genes that were high or low in both cell lines and tumors relative to NOSE.