Figure 1

WDR66 is highly expressed in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. A: mRNA expression of the WDR66 gene was determined by microarray analysis. Microarray analysis was performed on 18 healthy normal esophageal epithelium (NE) and 10 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) samples. Gene expression is presented as normalized (log2 scale) signal intensity of the WDR66 gene. The WDR66 gene is significantly differentially expressed in ESCC (corrected p-value < 0.0001). Expression level of WDR66 gene is low in NE but high in ESCC cases. B: Relative mRNA expression of the WDR66 gene in an independent validation cohort. Quantitation was done relative to the transcript of GAPDH. Significance in differential expression of individual gene between groups was calculated (p-value < 0.001). Results showed that WDR66 gene expression level is highest in ESCC and low to absent in NE or other carcinomas. On the horizontal axis patient groups ESCC, NE, EAC, GAC and CRC are depicted. C: WDR66 gene is highly expressed in ESCC epithelium according to in situ hybridization. In situ hybridization was down using anti-sense probes of human WDR66 gene in FFPE sections of esophageal specimens. Signals for WDR66 transcripts were observed specifically in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC, right), but not in normal squamous epithelium (NE, left). D: WDR66 expression level in various human cell lines. WDR66 expression was examined by quantitative real-time PCR in 14 cell lines cultivated from different human carcinomas. The expression was quantified relative to human esophageal squamous carcinoma cell line KYSE520. E: Tissue-specific expression of WDR66 gene in various human normal tissues. Quantitative real-time PCR analysis of WDR66 expression levels in 20 human normal tissues (FirstChoice® Human Total RNA Survey Panel). WDR66 gene is preferentially expressed in testis. Gene level was quantified relative to the expression in ESCC cell line KYSE520.