Comparison of ethidium bromide-stained agarose gel electrophoresis and automated fragment analysis for evaluation of IgH gene products

In acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients, automated fluorescence frag ment analysis (ALF) has been reported to improve the monoclonality detectio n rate of immunoglobulin heavy chain genes (IgH) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis. This study performed complementary determining region (CDR) I and III PCR on samples from 135 patients with B-cell neoplasias and 25 h ealthy controls. The value of ALF was investigated in comparison to the wid ely used ethidium bromide (ETB)-stained agarose gels (AGGE). ETB-stained AG GE detected monoclonal CDR III PCR products in 53/72 ALL, in 22/34 non-Hodg kin's lymphoma (NHL), 13/22 multiple myeloma (MM), and 2/7 monoclonal gammo pathies (MGUS). ALF identified monoclonal CDR Ill amplificates in 55/72 ALL , 23/34 B-NHL, 14/22 MM, and 2/7 MGUS. AGGE achieved clonal CDR I PCR resul ts in 30/64 samples, while ALF detected 34 clonal CDR I product patterns. T aking together, ET13-stained AGGE revealed monoclonality in 120/199 PCR pro ducts versus 129/199 by ALF. Compared with AGGE and ETB-staining, ALF offer s a slightly increased sensitivity and can be recommended for the evaluatio n of difficult samples. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.