Detection of Gene Amplification in Human Breast Tumors

Cytogenetic studies indicate the presence of novel amplified DNAs specific for human breast cancersMYC, neu and PRAD1 have been found amplified in 5-40% of breast cancer biopsies and cell lines, andare amplified less frequently. Laborious approaches to clone DNA from the cytogenetic manifestationsamplification have not proven to be efficient or simple means to novel oncogenes. RDA or representatanalysis is a newly developed molecular method that allows directed cloning of the molecular differeclosely related populations of DNA molecules. Amplified DNA from breast and melanoma cancer cell linby RDA and two unique RDA probe sets for tumor analysis have been recovered. This Phase I study willfollowing issues: a) do current probes arise from novel genetic map locations and do these encode reoncogenes?; b) how can the RDA methods be optimized for cloning amplified DNA from human tumors, andDNAs detected by RDA probes amplified frequently in uncultured human tumor cells, and does this amplwith clinical parameters? In Phase II the informative probes will be clinically cataloged and the cofor sites amplified in human tumors will be expanded.