Transcription profiling of human ependymoma tumors with known clinical outcomes

Ependymoma, the 3rd most common brain tumor in children, recurs in approximately 50% of patients. There is currently no robust marker that predicts for recurrence, which is a significant clinical problem; We used global gene expression profiling of 19 patient surgical samples obtained at initial diagnosis and with known clinical outcomes to discover novel prognostic markers. Experiment Overall Design: Gene expression profiles were generated from surgical tumor samples using Affymetrix HG-U133plus2 chips. Profiles were divided into recurrent and non-recurrent groups in order to identify differentially expressed genes that were associated with risk of recurrence. In addition, time to progression was correlated with gene expression as a continuous variable in the recurrent group.室管膜瘤（Ependymoma）是儿童第三常见的脑肿瘤，约50%的患者会出现肿瘤复发。目前尚无可靠的复发预测标志物，这是临床面临的重大难题之一；我们对19例初诊时获取、临床结局明确的患者手术样本开展全基因表达谱分析，以发掘新型预后标志物。实验总体设计：采用Affymetrix HG-U133plus2芯片对手术切除的肿瘤样本进行基因表达谱检测，生成相应表达谱数据。将表达谱划分为复发组与非复发组，以筛选与复发风险相关的差异表达基因。此外，在复发组中，将进展时间作为连续变量与基因表达水平进行相关性分析。