Widespread aneuploidy revealed by DNA microarray expression profiling

Expression profiling using DNA microarrays holds great promise for a variety of research applications, including the systematic characterization of genes discovered by sequencing projects 1,2 . To demonstrate the general usefulness of this approach, we recently obtained expression profiles for nearly 300 Saccharomyces cerevisiae deletion mutants 3 . Approximately 8% of the mutants profiled exhibited chromosome-wide expression biases, leading to spurious correlations among profiles. Competitive hybridization of genomic DNA from the mutant strains and their isogenic parental wild-type strains showed they were aneuploid for whole chromosomes or chromosomal segments. Expression profile data published by several other laboratories also suggest the use of aneuploid strains. In five separate cases, the extra chromosome harboured a close homologue of the deleted gene; in two cases, a clear growth advantage for cells acquiring the extra chromosome was demonstrated. Our results have implications for interpreting whole-genome expression data, particularly from cells known to suffer genomic instability, such as malignant or immortalized cells.