Russo Giuseppe, Zegar Charles, Giordano Antonio
Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine, College of Science and Technology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA.
Oncogene. 2003 Sep 29;22(42):6497-507. doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1206865.
Cancer is a highly variable disease with multiple heterogeneous genetic and epigenetic changes. Functional studies are essential to understanding the complexity and polymorphisms of cancer. The final deciphering of the complete human genome, together with the improvement of high throughput technologies, is causing a fundamental transformation in cancer research. Microarray is a new powerful tool for studying the molecular basis of interactions on a scale that is impossible using conventional analysis. This technique makes it possible to examine the expression of thousands of genes simultaneously. This technology promises to lead to improvements in developing rational approaches to therapy as well as to improvements in cancer diagnosis and prognosis, assuring its entry into clinical practice in specialist centers and hospitals within the next few years. Predicting who will develop cancer and how this disease will behave and respond to therapy after diagnosis will be one of the potential benefits of this technology within the next decade. In this review, we highlight some of the recent developments and results in microarray technology in cancer research, discuss potentially problematic areas associated with it, describe the eventual use of microarray technology for clinical applications and comment on future trends and issues.
癌症是一种高度可变的疾病，具有多种异质性的基因和表观遗传变化。功能研究对于理解癌症的复杂性和多态性至关重要。人类全基因组的最终破译，以及高通量技术的改进，正在引发癌症研究的根本性变革。微阵列是一种新的强大工具，可用于在常规分析无法企及的规模上研究相互作用的分子基础。这项技术使得同时检测数千个基因的表达成为可能。这项技术有望在开发合理的治疗方法以及改善癌症诊断和预后方面取得进展，确保其在未来几年内在专科中心和医院进入临床实践。预测谁会患癌症以及这种疾病在诊断后将如何表现和对治疗作出反应，将是这项技术在未来十年内的潜在益处之一。在这篇综述中，我们重点介绍微阵列技术在癌症研究中的一些最新进展和成果，讨论与之相关的潜在问题领域，描述微阵列技术在临床应用中的最终用途，并对未来趋势和问题发表评论。
