Prognostic significance of acquired copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity in acute myeloid leukemia.

Background: Chromosomal abnormalities are important in the diagnosis and prognosis of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Genomic microarray techniques detect recurrent copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity (cnLOH) in addition to copy number aberrations. However, the clinical utility has not been fully established.

A novel four-color fluorescence in situ hybridization assay for the detection of TMPRSS2 and ERG rearrangements in prostate cancer.

Since the identification of the TMPRSS2-ERG rearrangement as the most common fusion event in prostate cancer, various methods have been developed to detect this rearrangement and to study its prognostic significance. We report a novel four-color fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) assay that detects not only the typical TMPRSS2-ERG fusion but also alternative rearrangements of the TMPRSS2 or ERG gene. We validated this assay on fresh, frozen, or formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded prostate cancer specimens, including cell lines, primary prostate cancer tissues, xenograft tissues derived from metastatic prostate cancer, and metastatic tissues from castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) patients.