Gene expression profiling of metastasising and non-metastasising canine primary oral melanomas

In this study the global expression profiles of primary oral melanomas that metastasised were compared with those of primary tumours that did not metastasise. The objective was to identify genes involved in oral melanoma metastatic progression that may represent targets for therapeutic intervention and biomarkers for prediction of tumour metastasis. Canine Gene 1.1 ST Arrays were employed for gene expression analysis of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded biopsies of oral melanomas borne by 18 dogs that died due to confirmed oral melanoma metastasis and 10 dogs that were still alive more than 540 days post-surgery.