You want to test if smoking affects gene expression differences in the lung. But

Question

You want to test if smoking affects gene expression differences in the lung. But you think the longer someone smokes, the more the genes will be altered in the lung. You design a study with a surgeon who will work on this project with you. You ask him to collect lung tissue during operations for you from patients who have never smoked, smoked for less than 2 years and from those patients who have smoked more than 2 years. Now you compare the mRNA obtained from these three tissues. You obtain patterns of genes that are differentially expressed among these tissues. You want to pick 3 genes , based on the expression patterns of these genes, which you will characterize in detail in subsequent experiments. What type of gene expression pattern would you look for when selecting your 3 genes?

Explanation / Answer

Smoking plays significant role in lung cancer development, leading to alteration in cell divisions and regulation of immune response. So for investigating the effect of smoking on gene expression in lungs, the genes involved in the cell division and growth regulation are are investigated. Most of the genes showing significantly increased expression, e.g., TTK, NEK2, and PRC1, are involved in cell cycle regulation and mitosis.

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