DNA Copy Number Analysis on Tissue Microarrays

Detection of DNA sequence copy number changes is essential in both clinical practice and basic research, especially in cancer research. The combination of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and tissue microarray (TMA) technology provides high-throughput means for the evaluation of genetic aberrations in a large number of tissue samples. FISH on TMA is technically demanding and several protocols that include a variety of tissue pretreatment steps have been developed to improve the success of this methodology. Despite of the technical difficulties, FISH analysis on TMA has been successfully used not only to uncover genetic alterations in various malignancies but to also rapidly establish the clinical significance of such changes.