A RAPID POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION-BASED TECHNIQUE FOR DETECTING CLONAL T-CELL RECEPTOR GENE REARRANGEMENTS IN CUTANEOUS T-CELL LYMPHOMAS OFBOTH THE ALPHA-BETA AND GAMMA-DELTA VARIETIES

T-cell receptor-gamma gene rearrangements provide specific clonal mark ers for a variety of lymphoid malignancies. T-cell receptor gene rearr angements in patients with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma were examined usi ng conventional Southern blot analysis and a newly developed poly mera se chain reaction (PCR)-based technique. The oligoprimers amplified a rearranged V gamma and J gamma segment (including the N region) of the T-cell receptor-gamma gene, and products were resolved using high-res olution nondenaturing polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Our results demonstrated concordance between the two techniques in 10 patients wit h cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (including nine cases of C beta and one ca se of delta 2 TCR gene rearrangements) and 10 negative controls, In th e present study, we have shown that this PCR-based method provides a h ighly sensitive, specific technique for the detection of T-cell clones of both the alpha beta and gamma delta varieties and could be used in both fresh and formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues. It is estim ated that this PCR-based technique is 10 to 50 times more sensitive th an conventional Southern blot analysis in the detection of small T-cel l clones.