I plan to study mRNA expression of some biomarkers e.g. p53, hTERT, Wnt7A by quantitative PCR from ovarian cancer patients. Can I do the analysis using whole blood samples from patients instead of tumor tissue? Will I get the same expression profile for both whole blood samples as well as tumor tissues?
I depends. There are groups running mRNA analysis from "whole blood", but fyi you usually use the plasma, unless we're taking about whole blood cells. However there are many things to consider and I would recommend you read up on this topic. For example mRNA rapidly degrades so age, storage and preparation of samples is paramount. Also, the type of mRNA (ie. sequence length, pcr system, etc.) will effect the accuracy and stability of the technique you plan to use. To your last question, yes you will often but not always get different profiles from tumor and plasma. But again this depends on a number of assay factors. This discordance can be good or bad, depending on your final results. Again, there are many groups publishing this type of analysis and I recommend you read up before you design your experiments.
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