THE ANALYSIS OF CD44 ALTERNATIVE SPLICING PATTERN IN UROLOGIC CANCER

我们已经开发了CD44竞争RT-PCR，这是一种高度敏感的方法，足以在更大数量的非肿瘤细胞中检测到CD44R1高表达的稀疏肿瘤细胞。这项技术应用于50份尿样，以研究肿瘤细胞的检测是否可以在临床上用于癌症诊断。以内源性CD44R2转录本作为内标竞争RNA，可定量检测CD44R1和CD44R2转录本的相对表达。在30例未发现肿瘤的标本中，CD44R1和CD44R2转录本的比值不超过1。另一方面，在20例尿道癌患者中，CD44竞争RT-PCR方法正确识别了13例标本。该方法诊断癌症的敏感性和特异性分别为65%和100%。

We have developed CD44-Competitive-RT-PCR which is highly sensitive method enough to detect sparse tumor cells overexpressing CD44R1 among a much larger population of non-neoplastic cells. This technique was applied to 50 urine specimens to investigate whether the detection of tumor cells could be clinically useful in diagnosing cancer. The relative expression of CD44R1 to CD44R2 transcript can be quantified by CD44-Competitive-RT-PCR using endogenous CD44R2 transcript as the internal standard competitor RNA.In 30 specimens with no evidence of neoplasia, the ratio does not exceed 1. On the other hand, in the remaining 20 specimens from patients with urinary tract cancer, the CD44-competitive-RT-PCR assay correctly identified 13 specimens. The sensitivity and specificity of this assay for a diagnosis of cancer was 65% and 100%, respectively.