Abstract
We assessed the feasibility of clonality analysis
with human androgen receptor gene polymerase
chain reaction in terms of the sensitivity and
specificity for normal and cancerous colonic tissues
taken from fourteen informative cases
selected from 22 women with colonic adenocarcinoma.
Ten crypts microdissected from each 10-
Òm-thick cryostat sections and whole tissues
were used as samples. DNA was extracted from the
samples and amplified with and without prior
enzyme digestion. These products were analyzed
by capillary electrophoresis for clonality. Of the
whole-tissue DNA, none of the normal tissues and
seven (50.0%) of the cancerous tissues showed
monoclonality. Of the microdissected samples,
monoclonality was found in 88.4% (107/121) of
normal crypts and 95.9% (117/122) of cancerous
crypts. Samples composed of crypts with short
and long alleles were found in eight of the 14 normal
colonic mucosae, but in none of the cancerous
tissues. We concluded that the sensitivity of this
method is limited for both whole-tissue DNA and
microdissected-tissue DNA, because monoclonality
from small samples does not always indicate
monoclonality of the entire lesion. The high specificity
of this method, however, allows polyclonal
results in whole tissues to be confirmed by additional
analysis of microdissected tissues.
