New Analytical Tool Applied for First Time to Oral Cancer
September 29, 2005
NIDCR grantees and colleagues reported last year successfully constructing an array of more than 32,400 overlapping, or tiling, short segments of cloned DNA that, like the links in a chain, span the entire human genome. They called this research first "tiling-path array comparative genomic hybridization," or tiling path array CGH. In their initial studies with tumor samples, they found their powerful new tool allowed them to profile segments of DNA throughout the genome for copy variations at a resolution 100 times that of conventional methods. "This increases our ability to identify genetic alterations and their boundaries throughout the genome in a single comparative hybridization experiment," they wrote. "At this tiling resolution, we identified minute DNA alterations not previously reported. Now, in September 1 issue of the journal Cancer Research, the grantees follow up with the first application of tiling-path array CGH to clinical specimens of oral squamous cell carcinoma genomes. The authors found several novel alterations, including one microamplification found in 45 percent of cases containing the triple functional domain (TFD) gene; and also reported the first co-amplification of two gene clusters, or a sequential group of genes, on chromosome 11 that could be important in causing oral cancer.