Background: The gene expression profiles of most human tissues have been studied by determining the transcriptome of whole tissue homogenates. Due to the solid composition of tissues it is difficult to study the transcriptomes of individual cell types that compose a tissue. To overcome the problem of heterogeneity we have developed a method to isolate individual cell types from whole tissue that are a source of RNA suitable for transcriptome profiling.

Protein profiling by SELDI is relatively easy to perform and it has great potential in prostate cancer diagnosis through pattern recognition. Quantitative proteomics can potentially determine the identity of many biomarkers specific for prostate cancer.

C4-2 arose probably from CD26(+) LNCaP cells, while CL1 arose de novo.