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Detection of HER-2 oncogene amplification in breast cancer by differential polymerase chain reaction from single
K Friedrichs1, D Lohmann, H Höfler
1Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, University of Hamburg, Medical School, Germany.
Abstract:
Amplification of genomic DNA encoding oncogenes such as HER-2 (syn.c-erbB2/c-neu) may be substantially involved in the initiation and progression of breast cancer. In order to refine and facilitate the quantitative analysis of HER-2 amplification in breast cancer, differential polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed on DNA derived from single cryosections of tumor tissue. This technique is based on the simultaneous amplification of a potentially amplified oncogene (HER-2) and a reference gene (IFN-gamma). Differential PCR yielded reproducible results that were in agreement with gene copy quantification using the dot blot technique. Thus we suggest differential PCR to be a reliable and rapid method for determining relative gene dosage in a minute amount of tumour tissue.