Clonality analysis in tumours of women by PCR amplification of X-linked genes

Modifications have been made to two polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods for clonality analysis based on the inactivation patterns of two highly polymorphic X-linked genes encoding the androgen receptor (AR) and monoamine oxidase A (MAOA). These methods have been used to examine the clonal nature of frozen tissues from 42 tumours and 25 non-tumour controls from female subjects. Unbalanced inactivation patterns of the genes, which indicate monoclonality, were frequently observed in tumours of heterozygous (informative) cases (18/35=51·4 per cent for the AR gene, 9/30=30 per cent for the MAOA gene, and 21/38=55·2 per cent for both). Among 23 informative non-tumour controls, only one (4·3 per cent), a reactive lymph node, showed skewing in the AR gene. Successful detection of monoclonality was found to depend on the proportion of tumour cells in the tissues examined. None of the AR or MAOA informative cases containing less than 50 per cent of tumour cells showed imbalance in inactivation patterns. With more than 50 per cent of tumour cells in the samples, 66·6 per cent (18/27) of AR and 39·1 per cent (9/23) of MAOA informative cases showed allelic imbalance, with a combined frequency of 72·4 per cent (21/29) of both genes. Our results demonstrate that the methods described are useful for clonal analysis of tissue samples from female patients. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.