Gene expression profiling in hepatoblastomas

Hepatoblastomas represent the most frequent malignant liver tumors in children. Although crucial signalling pathways involved in their pathogenesis such as the IGF-II and WNT pathways have been identified, a systematic search for overexpressed mRNA species has not been performed yet. In this study we have established mRNA expression profiles using oligonucleotide arrays (Affymetrix) of 3 hepatoblastomas without preoperative treatment with chemotherapy, corresponding adjacent liver tissue samples and two fetal liver samples. Bioinformatic analysis has uncovered several genes highly overexpressed in hepatoblastoma…