Gene expression profiling of metastasising and non-metastasising canine primary cutaneous mast cell tumours

In this study the global expression profiles of primary cutaneous mast cell tumours that metastasised were compared with those of primary tumours that did not metastasise. The objective was to identify genes involved in mast cell tumour 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 mast cell tumours borne by 18 dogs that died due to confirmed mast cell tumour metastasis and 16 dogs that were still alive more than 1000 days post-surgery.