Gene expression patterns distinguish colonoscopically isolated human aberrant crypt foci from normal colonic mucosa.

Aberrant crypt foci (ACF) are considered the earliest identifiable preneoplastic colonic lesions; thus, a greater understanding of the nature of genetic changes underlying the transformation of normal colonic mucosa (NM) into ACF may provide insight into the mechanisms of carcinogenesis. ACF were identified by indigo carmine spraying onto colonic mucosa during colonoscopy and isolated as standard pinch biopsies of the mucosal areas containing the ACF. RNAs isolated from ACF and matched NM biopsies from the ascending and descending colons of 13 patients were analyzed on arrays containing 9128 cDNAs. Thirty-four differentially expressed (P < 0.001) genes were found in a paired comparison of the ACF and NM samples, and 25 of 26 matched pairs of ACF and NM could be correctly classified in leave-one-out cross-validation. Differential expression for seven of eight genes was confirmed by real-time reverse transcription-PCR. Furthermore, ACF and NM samples, including six pairs of ACF and NM samples that had not previously been analyzed by array hybridization, can be correctly classified on the basis of the overexpression in ACF of three selected genes (REG4, SRPN-B5, and TRIM29) evaluated by real-time reverse transcription-PCR. In a separate analysis of 13 biopsy pairs from either ascending or descending colon, ACF and NM samples could also be correctly classified by the gene expression patterns. Analysis of gene expression differences in ACF from the ascending and descending colon versus NM samples indicates that ACF from these distinct colonic locations are converging toward similar gene expression profiles and losing differences in gene expression characteristic of NM from the ascending versus descending colon.