D. Niederacher et al., DETECTION OF SEQUENTIAL GENETIC ALTERATIONS RELEVANT FOR BREAST-CANCER DEVELOPMENT, European journal of cancer prevention, 5(6), 1996, pp. 497-503
Breast cancer emerges as a multistep process with transformation of no
rmal cells via steps of hyperplasia, premalignant change and in situ c
arcinoma, Cytogenetic and molecular genetic analyses of breast cancer
samples indicate that tumour development involves the accumulation of
various genetic alterations, including amplification of oncogenes and
mutation or loss of tumour suppressor genes. Microdissection of histol
ogical sections is needed to correlate the specific histological chang
e and the genetic alteration. For detection of oncogene amplification
quantitative differential polymerase chain reaction (PCR) can. be used
, For assessment of loss of heterozygosity PCR-based microsatellite po
lymorphisms detecting differences in short tandem repeat sequences are
much more informative than standard two-allele restriction fragment l
ength polymorphism markers, Still, the direct correlation of the genet
ic alterations to specific histological findings is the key to reveal
insight into tumour biology and thereby gain prognostic information fo
r the individual breast cancer patient.