Lin Zhang

The characteristics of an organism are determined by the genes expressed within it. A method was developed, called serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE), that allows the quantitative and simultaneous analysis of a large number of transcripts. To demonstrate this strategy, short diagnostic sequence tags were isolated from pancreas, concatenated, and cloned. Manual sequencing of 1000 tags revealed a gene expression pattern characteristic of pancreatic function. New pancreatic transcripts corresponding to novel tags were identified. SAGE should provide a broadly applicable means for the quantitative cataloging and comparison of expressed genes in a variety of normal, developmental, and disease states.

As a step toward understanding the complex differences between normal and cancer cells in humans, gene expression patterns were examined in gastrointestinal tumors. More than 300,000 transcripts derived from at least 45,000 different genes were analyzed. Although extensive similarity was noted between the expression profiles, more than 500 transcripts that were expressed at significantly different levels in normal and neoplastic cells were identified. These data provide insight into the extent of expression differences underlying malignancy and reveal genes that may prove useful as diagnostic or prognostic markers.