Display of Mrnas from Normal Tumorigenic Cells

Differential gene expression is a highly regulated process which controls normal cell growth anddifferentiation; its abnormality is the underlying cause of disease states such as cancer. Our objectiveis twofold: (1) to provide the biomedical research community with complete line of reagent systemsbased on the latest technological breakthrough known as Differential Display, (2) to use our expertiseto search for early diagnostic markers or therapeutic targets for disease states such as cancer. Thesereagent systems have made identifications and clonings of differentially expressed genes within easyreach for every researcher. The principle of Differential Display is to systematically distribute mRNA 3'termini on a denaturing polyacrylamide gel after RNA-PCR using multiple combinations of anchoredoligo-dT and arbitrary decamers. This Selective Display approach modifies the method by using, insteadof anchored oligo-dT primers, a set of gene family-specific decamers in combinations with arbitrarydecamers to display only those genes of interest. Thus, it complements Differential Display bynarrowing down the scope of a gene search while allowing only the coding regions of mRNAs to bedisplayed. If successful, this work will lead to more lines of commercial reagent systems for the generalresearch community and will greatly speed up hunting down many important disease-causing genes.