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Published on: September 13, 2018
High-throughput tissue microarray analysis of erbB-2 gene amplification in urinary bladder cancer. A study of
Draga I Toncheva1, Boriana M Zaharieva
1Department of Medical Genetics, Medical University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria. draga@spnet.net
Introduction:
Overexpression of the receptor Her-2 leads to increased proliferative response to epidermal growth factors which plays a key role in tumor development and growth. Increased oncoprotein level, in the majority of cases, is caused by erbB-2 gene amplification. To define the frequency of amplifications of erbB-2 in bladder cancer, and to determine their association with the tumor phenotype we utilized tissue microarray (TMA) approach.
Materials And Methods:
We analyzed a TMA consisting of 159 transitional cell bladder carcinomas for erbB-2 gene amplification by dual-color FISH.
Results:
The frequency of erbB-2 amplification was 5.3% of all successfully analyzed samples (4 of 75). It increased from minimally invasive (pT1) to muscle-invasive (pT2-4) tumors, as well as with advanced tumor grade (G1 to G2 to G3). All amplifications were cluster amplifications confirming the fact that erbB-2 amplification occurs intrachromosomally in bladder cancer.
Conclusions:
We concluded that despite its low incidence, erbB-2 amplification is of importance for the bladder tumor invasion and progression.
