Gene expression signature reflects differentiation differences rather than telomere maintenance mechanism

A gene expression signature purporting to distinguish between telomerase and ALT immortalization has recently been described (Lafferty-Whyte et al., 2009). This was obtained as the intersection of two independent signatures, one obtained from cell lines and the other from a panel of liposarcomas, which utilize different telomere maintenance mechanisms (TMMs). To assess the utility of this signature we used Affymetrix U133plus2.0 arrays to undertake a similar analysis of an independent collection of liposarcomas of defined TMM. In our dataset, the 297 gene signature causes the liposarcomas to cluster not on the basis of TMM, but rather on the basis of tumor histological subtype [Figure 1], consistent with the signatures reported by others (Matushansky et al., 2008).

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Doyle KR, Mitchell MA, Roberts CL, James S, Johnson JE, Zhou Y, von Mehren M, Lev D, Kipling D, Broccoli D