Abstract

Analysis of messenger RNA and proteins is widely used to compare patterns of gene expression between cells or tissues of different kinds and under different conditions; for example, between normal and cancer cells. The goal of the individuals who are developing these methods has been to enable faster, simpler, more sensitive and systematic analyses, and over the past few decades techniques have become increasingly more sophisticated. This timeline article reviews the evolution of these technologies as well as strategies for identifying differentially expressed genes in normal and cancer cells. It also highlights their use for the search for target genes of the tumour suppressor p53.

Author affiliations

1. Peng Liang is at the Vanderbilt–Ingram Cancer Center, Department of Cancer Biology, School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37232, USA.
   Email: peng.liang@vanderbilt.edu
2. Arthur B. Pardee is at the Department of Adult Oncology, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
   Email: Arthur_Pardee@dfci.harvard.edu