Figure 6. Chimeric GOLM1-MAK10 is generated through transcription-induced mechanisms.

(A) Genomic DNA analysis of GOLM1-MAK10 revealed no chromosomal rearrangement. This assay was possible for GOLM1-MAK10 as parental genes are adjacent genes on the same chromosome. Upper panel: diagram of the intergenic region between the RNA junction of GOLM1-MAK10. Black boxes represent the chimeric RNA exons. Three primer pairs were used to scan the 19kb intergenic region. The expected product sizes are indicated below the diagram. Lower panel: results of long-range PCR. Results from two ESCC patients (145C and 142C), the matched benign esophageal tissues (145N and142N), and normal human genomic DNA from Promega (ctrl) were shown. Absence of size differences between cancer, benign, and normal control indicates that there were no gross DNA rearrangements. (B) The 5' parental gene GOLM1 is over-expressed in ESCC. The microarray expression analysis was based on the published data by Hu et al 2010 available from Oncomine (17). The plot compares the expression in esophageal epithelium of matched benign (n=17) vs. esophageal epithelium of cancer (n=17). The 5' parental gene was over-expressed in cancer vs. matched benign (p value= 3.09e-07), but not the 3' parental gene (p value= 0.775). Y-axis represents relative gene expression in log2 scale. Box-plot shows the range of relative expression levels with sample minimum and maximum represented by a short horizontal bar. The box itself represents 50% of all samples with the lower and upper quartile separated by a line that represents the median. Dots outside the bar are considered outliers.