Classification of lung carcinomas using gene expression analysis

摘要

The invention provides a molecular taxonomy of lung carcinoma, the leading cause of cancer death in the United States and worldwide. Oligonucleotide microarrays were used to analyze mRNA expression levels corresponding to 12,600 transcript sequences in 186 lung tumor samples, including 139 adenocarcinomas resected from the lung. Hierarchical and probabilistic clustering of expression data defined distinct subclasses of lung adenocarcinoma. Among these were tumors with high relative expression of neuroendocrine genes and of type II pneumocyte genes, respectively. Retrospective analysis revealed a less favorable outcome for the adenocarcinomas with neuroendocrine gene expression. The diagnostic potential of expression profiling is emphasized by its ability to discriminate primary lung adenocarcinomas from metastases of extrapulmonary origin. These results suggest that integration of expression profile data with clinical parameters could aid in diagnosis of lung cancer patients.