E. Ricevuto et al., MOLECULAR DIAGNOSIS OF P53 MUTATIONS IN GASTRIC-CARCINOMA BY TOUCH PREPARATION, The American journal of pathology, 148(2), 1996, pp. 405-413
Thirty-one tumor samples from selected cases of gastric carcinoma were
analyzed for mutations of the p53 tumor suppressor gene. Template DNA
was prepared according to the touch preparation procedure, which allo
wed us to isolate clusters of neoplastic cells out of a stromal cellul
ar background to be used as a template in the amplification of target
exons of the p53 locus. In our present study, by polymerase chain reac
tion/single strand conformation polymorphism analysis we give evidence
of p53 mutations occurring in the DNA-binding core domain of the prot
ein (exons 5 through 9), which are clustered in stages III and IV of t
he disease (six mutations out of seventeen samples; 35%). No p53 mutat
ions were detected in fourteen gastric cancer samples at I and II stag
es. Beside the use of conventional molecular scanning procedures, our
study proposes the application of the touch preparation method to incr
ease the detection of genetic alterations in human solid tumors.