Effect of Non-Tumor Cell Contamination on Detection of p53 Gene Mutations in Human Gastric Cancer Cells by Polymerase Chain Reaction Single-Strand Conformation Polymorphism Analysis

摘要

Background:We have previously studied p53 gene mutations in 25 primary gastric cancer tissues by polymerase chain reaction single-strand conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) analysis for exon 4–8 and immunohistochemical staining with anti-p53 antibody. In four cases, the discrepancy of the results was observed between the two methods. In one case, positive by PCR-SSCP but negative by immunohistochemical staining, the mutation was silent. In three cases, the p53 gene mutations were detected only by immunohistochemical staining. This discrepancy may be due to the contamination of the samples by cells without p53 gene mutation, such as non-tumor cells. This study was conducted to investigate the sensitivity of PCR-SSCP analysis to p53 gene mutations when the sample was contaminated with non-tumor cells.