GENE REARRANGEMENT ANALYSIS USING THE POLYMERASE-CHAIN-REACTION

Gene rearrangement analysis is a new laboratory procedure that may ass ist in the diagnosis of lymphomas and lymphoid leukemias. Our purpose in describing gene rearrangement procedures in detail was to show the results of using fresh, frozen, or paraffin embedded tissues fixed in neutral buffered formalin, acidic formalin or Hollande fixative to pro vide DNA. Gene rearrangement analysis involves DNA isolation from tiss ue, a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using this DNA as the reaction t emplate, and electrophoresis of the PCR products on agarose gels. In l ymphomas and lymphoid leukemias, gel electrophoresis usually shows 1 o r 2 sharp bands of DNA, indicating the presence of a single clone of l ymphoid cells. Benign inflammatory conditions show more than 2 bands o r a smear of DNA made up of hundreds of bands because they are compose d of many different clones of lymphocytes, each clone having a differe nt gene rearrangement. We concluded that gene rearrangement analysis i s useful in diagnosing lymphocytic proliferations.