Abstract

Screening and identification of candidate genes essential for cervical lymph node metastasis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma with microarrays

The aim of the present study is to identify genes that are crucial for the cervical lymph node metastasis, which predicts poor prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), endemic in southern China. Microarrays with probes to determine genomic expression profile and promoter methylation status in tumor specimens were used, to test cDNA reversely transcribed from total RNA isolated from the samples. More than 3, 000 genes with downregulated and upregulated differential expression, and 33 genes with differential methylation were identified. Among them, expression of BAZ2B, CYP2J2 and ZNF628 were reduced due to promoter hypermethylation. Gene Ontology and pathway analysis were performed using online databases including Bioconductor and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway. In summary, genes as biomarkers for prognosis of NPC were screened, and BAZ2B, CYP2J2 and ZNF628 were related to lymph node metastasis