The Human Genome Project

Transcriptional Profiling (TP)

March 2009

So first… Transcriptional profiling are technologies that can be used to simultaneously measure the messenger RNA concentrations for many or all expressed genes. It’s very important if we’re talking about cancer that one is analyzing samples which are homogeneous. If you take a sample which is heterogeneous, which is a mixture of different populations of cells and use this technology, you will get a number average of what is occurring in that mixed population and you really won’t have an indication of what’s occurring in specific cells. A very important other component of this is that you need a suitable normal control. If you have a cancer and you have the precursor cells, hopefully from the same individual before cancer, one can say what are the alterations? The advantage of transcriptional profiling is the fact that one is actually using the messenger RNA concentrations as a surrogate for what is occurring in terms of production. It’s a much simpler way to do this but there are some important limitations. One of the limitations is the fact that messenger RNA could make more than one protein and I’ll discuss that a little bit later. Another important thing is that in addition to the samples being homogeneous, it’s important to have a suitable normal control for comparison. If we are comparing a cancer in one person to a normal in another person, are they actually the same or not?

< Previous Slide

Transcriptional Profiling (TP)

Next Slide >

 

Jump to section:

• Introduction
• How Do We Obtain Genetic Information?
• Cell Cross-Section
• Different Cell Types
• What Happens When You Sit Outside in the Sun?
• Melanoma
• DNA is the Altered Target in Cancer Cells
• DNA Structure
• How to Tackle a Problem as Difficult as Cancer?
• Sequencing DNA
• More on DNA Structure
• Replicating a Strand of DNA
• Developing the Deoxy Chain Terminiation Sequence
• Reading a DNA Sequence
• Gel Electrophoresis
• Two DNA Sequences Seen in Gel Electrophoresis
• Overlapping Pieces of DNA
• Requirements to Sequence the Human Genome?
• Advances in Sanger Sequencing
• Sequencing with Fluorescent Dye
• Advances in Fluorescent Sequencing
• Celera Genomics
• Capacity: 96 Capillary Sequencing
• Computers and the Human Genome Project
• Where are We Today?
• What Have We Learned From Genome Sequences?
• What Can We Do With Sequenced Genomes?
• Transcriptional Profiling (TP)
• Different Technologies to Produce Microarrays
• Utilizing Microarrays to Measure Gene Expression
• Hyrbidization to an Affymetrix Array
• Gene Expression Comparison Between Samples
• Gene Expression Map
• Proteomic-Based Strategies
• Example of a Single Gene
• Proteomics
• How Do We Quantify Proteins?
• Differentiate Between Control and Disease State
• Mass Spectrometry
• Electrospray Ionization FT-ICR Mass Spectrometer
• LC-ESI-TOF vs LC-FT-ICR Mass Spectrometry
• What's the Short-term Payoff?
• What's the Long-term Payoff?
• Diagram of Pathways Involved in Steroid Metabolism
• Questions?