Molecular cytogenetics

In the past decade, clinical cytogenetics has undergone remarkable advancement as molecular biology techniques have been applied to conventional chromosome analysis. The limitations of conventional banding analysis in the accurate diagnosis and interpretation of certain chromosome abnormalities have largely been overcome by these new technologies, which include fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), comparative genomic hybridization (CGH), and multicolor FISH (M-FISH, SKY, and Rx-FISH). Clinical applications include diagnosis of microdeletion and microduplication syndromes, detection of subtelomeric rearrangements in idiopathic mental retardation, identification of marker and derivative chromosomes, prenatal diagnosis of trisomy syndromes, and gene rearrangements and gene amplification in tumors. Molecular cytogenetic methods have expanded the possibilities for precise genetic diagnoses, which are extremely important for clinical management of patients and appropriate counseling of their families.