Interphasic analysis of aneuploidy in cancer cell lines using primed in situ labeling

The primed in situ (PRINS) labeling technique has been adapted to chromosomal screening of interphasic tumoral cells. A panel of ten chromosome-specific alpha-satellite DNA primers was used to evaluate numerical chromosome abnormalities in two colon cancer cell lines (Caco-2 and HT-29) and in three of their subpopulations (PF11, TC7, and HT29-MTX). In each cell line, the copy number distribution for different chromosomes showed different patterns. The observation of significant variations in the chromosome constitutions between subpopulations derived from the same original tumor suggests the common occurrence of chromosome copy number heterogeneity in tumoral cell lines. This study demonstrates that the PRINS procedure offers a simple and reliable method for in situ chromosomal screening, which could be efficiently used for karyotypic analysis of tumoral cells.