microRNA expression profiling of human colorectal cancer cell lines: HRT-18 vs. Caco-2. Homo sapiens

MicroRNAs regulate the biological aggressiveness of colorectal cancer (CRC) cells and might serve as potential prognostic factors and therapeutic targets. In this study, we therefore globally profiled microRNAs associated with aggressive growth in CRC cells, in an attempt to identify novel prognostic biomarkers in CRC patients. In detail, two different CRC cell lines (Caco-2 and HRT-18) with completely different growth rates and different E-cadherin expression were profiled for differences in more than 1000 human microRNAs by using microarray technology. Overall design: Two-condition experiment, HRT-18 vs. Caco-2. Biological replicates: 3, independently grown and harvested. On each array, one BR of HRT-18 cells was directly compared to one BR of Caco-2 cells (serving as reference sample). All hybridizations were repeated with reversed dye assignment (dye-swap) as technical replicates.

微小RNA（microRNAs）可调控结直肠癌（colorectal cancer, CRC）细胞的生物学侵袭性，有望成为潜在的预后因子与治疗靶点。因此，本研究针对结直肠癌细胞中与侵袭性生长相关的微小RNA开展全局表达谱分析，以期鉴定结直肠癌患者的新型预后生物标志物。
具体而言，本研究选取两株生长速率与E-钙黏蛋白（E-cadherin）表达模式完全不同的结直肠癌细胞系（Caco-2与HRT-18），采用微阵列技术（microarray technology）对超过1000种人类微小RNA的表达差异进行检测。
整体实验设计：本实验为双组对照实验，即比较HRT-18与Caco-2细胞。生物学重复（biological replicates）共3组，均为独立培养并收获的样本。每张芯片中，一份HRT-18细胞的生物学重复样本与一份Caco-2细胞的生物学重复样本（作为对照样本）进行直接比对。所有杂交实验均通过反转荧光染料标记（dye-swap，染料互换）进行重复，作为技术重复（technical replicates）。