Molecular Biology Of The Cell 6th Edition by Bruce Alberts, Alexander Johnson, Julian Lewis, David Morgan, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, Peter Walter

Exercise 2

Comparisons of the patterns of mRNA levels across different human cell types show that the level of expression of almost every active gene is different. The patterns of mRNA abundance are so characteristic of cell type that they can be used to determine the tissue of origin of cancer cells, even though the cells may have metasta- sized to different parts of the body. By definition, however, cancer cells are different from their noncancerous precur- sor cells. How do you suppose then that patterns of mRNA expression might be used to determine the tissue source of a human cancer?