Gene expression profiling revealed overexpression of vesicle amine transport protein-1 (VAT-1) as a potential oncogene in gastric cancer

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common types of cancer worldwide. Owing to the distinct molecular pathology and the increasing progression rate of GC in Asia, suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) was used as a high-throughput gene expression analysis method to find genes associated with GC pathogenesis. Total RNA was extracted from the clinical samples, and mRNA was isolated and used in SSH method. The subtracted library was subjected to cloning and the randomly selected clones were sequenced. qRT-PCR was used for expression analysis. The overexpression of vesicle amine transport protein-1 (VAT-1) gene was observed and its expression was analyzed by qRT-PCR in clinical tissue samples. According to the potential oncogenic activity of VAT-1 and its probable surface-occurrence in GC cells, it might be involved in GC pathogenesis and invasion, and it is suggested to be investigated in the diagnosis and therapeutics of GC.