Identification of candidate molecular markers of nasopharyngeal carcinoma by tissue microarray and in situ hybridization.

To scan differentially expressed genes and to identify candidate molecular markers in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), we analyzed cDNA microarray data by GenMAPP to find specifically expressed genes in NPC and used tissue microarray and in situ hybridization techniques to confirm our microarray results. Our cDNA microarray results showed that TSPAN-1 and DPP10 genes were down-expressed in NPC, and COX7B and RFC2 genes were over-expressed in NPC. Real-time quantitative reverse transcription-PCR and in situ hybridization (ISH) techniques confirmed that TSPAN-1 and DPP10 genes had only 40.72 and 40.70% positive expression in NPC, but had high positive expression in chronic inflammation of nasopharyngeal mucosa (P < 0.01). However, COX7B and RFC2 genes were high positive rate in NPC (84.24 and 64.53%, respectively) than in normal control tissues. The data suggested that TSPAN-1, DPP10, COX7B and RFC2 genes might be the putative molecular markers of NPC.