Genes differentially expressed in primary and metastatic liver GISTs.. Homo sapiens

Although the main cause of gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) is due to gain-of-function mutation of the c-kit gene in the interstitial cells of Cajal, concomitant genetic or epigenetic changes other than c-kit are thought to occur in the development of metastasis. We used microarrays to identify genes that were up-regulated and down-regulated in the metastatic liver GIST. Overall design: Three primary gastric GISTs without synchronous or metachronous metastasis and five metastatic liver tumors originated from gastric GIST were utilized for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. No patients had received imatinib therapy before surgery.