[A detection for replication error (RER) and LOH by microsatellite analysis in human lung cancer]

Recently, it has been considered that the pleomorphic changes in the microsatellite areas, which are said to exist at 50 to 100 thousand places on the human chromosome, are the results of abnormality in the repairing mechanism in cancer cells, and active attempts are now being made to detect such changes using PCR. In the DNA of cancer tissue where the repairing function has decreased, sequence repeat different in length from that of the DNA of normal tissue is observed. Such abnormal repeat shows itself as replication error (RER). As method of detecting RER, PCR was hitherto performed using RI-labeled primer, and after electrophoresis, detection was made by autoradiography. In order to obtain a reproducible result in a simple way, we attempted to detect by RER with auto-sequencer in 60 patients with lung cancer. As a result, we obtained data with a high sensitivity and objectivity. Therefore, a report is made on this study of ours.