[Amplification of oncogenes HER2, mdm-2 and myc in breast cancer determined by modified competitive PCR]

The amplification of oncogenes HER2, mdm-2 and myc was determined with a modified competitive PCR. The HER2, mdm-2 and myc genes were found to amplify in 5, 6 and 6 out of 15 patients with breast cancer respectively. The amplification of HER2 and mdm-2 correlated with advanced tumors and lymph node involvement respectively, indicating that the amplification of the oncogenes is a useful indicator for the prognosis of patients with breast cancer and for the study of the biological behaviors of tumors. This modified non-radioactive competitive PCR is simple to handle (even for DNA samples with low quantity and low quality), and accurate for measuring the copy numbers of genes.