Gene expression profiling of adult zebrafish caudal fin and tumor tissues

Using Agilent custom made expression microarrays we analyzed the difference of gene expression in caudal fin tissues of wild type fish and transgenic fish that can form melanomas. For this we used a transgenic line with forced expression of V600EBRAF that resulted in melanocyte hyperplasia, while expression of G12VHRAS resulted in malignant melanocyte neoplasia that initially grows radially (RGP) and then vertically (VGP) This microarray study was designed to determine the gene expression profile of zebrafish caudal fins in wild type or transgenic animals. Total RNA extracted from 3 pools of 10 caudal fins were used for WT, BRAF and RGP samples, whilst for VGP RNA was extracted from 3 pools of 6 caudal fin tumours.