The use of arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction in cancer research

There is a great need for techniques that detect the genome alterations present in cancer cells. Here, we present a review of the arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction (AP-PCR), a genomic mutation detection method with some unique advantages: (i) It can detect most types of mutations that usually occur in tumors (except point mutations). (ii) It is especially useful to detect moderate gains in DNA, which most methods currently in use cannot detect. (iii) It allows detection and cloning of alterations in a single experiment. (iv) It is inexpensive and does not require special equipment. We discuss some characteristics of this method and review some of its achievements in cancer research.