Genetic instability in cervical cancer detected by arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction.

ABSTRACT

The genetic instability in 54 Thai cervical cancer tissues were analyzed by Arbitrarily Primed Polymerase Chain Reaction (AP-PCR). The band alterations produced from 54 arbitrary primers were compared between the DNA finger printing from the patients and their corresponding normal cervical tissues. Results revealed 7 arbitrary primers provided DNA alteration patterns. Of these, an allelic loss in tumor DNA was found in DNA fingerprinting obtained from primers F-2 (64.8%), F-11 (68.5%), U-8 (51.9%), AE-3 (75.9%), AE-11 (53.7%), respectively. Moreover, DNA amplification was exhibited in patterns with primers B-12 (42.6%), J-16 (24.1%) and U-8 (70.4%). When genetic instability was investigated for associations with clinicopathological features, only the DNA amplified fragment with primer U-8 was significantly associated with stage II (P=0.030). Likewise, allelic loss amplified from arbitrary primer AE-3 showed significantly associate with age lower than 50 years old (P=0.003). Our findings suggest that the DNA alteration fragments produced from arbitrary primers of U-8 and AE-11 might be relevant to the pathogenesis of cervical cancer in Thai patients.