Genetic Damage Caused by ALU Repeats in Breast Cancer

Abstract

We hypothesize that some of the same factors that may contribute to genomic instability in breast tumors, will also increase levels of retrotransposition of Alu elements, resulting in further genetic damage. We have developed a PCR-based method that is capable of looking at some of the most recent Alu inserts and eliminate background from the 500,000 older Alus. We will use this assay to compare inserts between breast tumor and normal tissue from the same patient and determine the rate of this type of insertion for the first time. In order to make this assay capable of effectively measuring the retrotransposition rate, we are developing methods to display a higher percentage of new Alu inserts. We have developed several different methods to look at subsets of the 1000 recent Ya5 inserts. In the next year, we will make improvements to these technologies, exploring subtraction of recent inserts from normal and tumor tissues and start to apply these techniques to tumor samples.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 1999
Accession Number
ADA385262

Entities

People

  • Prescott L. Deininger

Organizations

  • Tulane University of Louisiana

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Breast Cancer
  • Cell Line
  • Cells
  • Chemistry
  • Chromosomes
  • Cultured Cells
  • Detection
  • Diseases And Disorders
  • Environmental Health
  • Genetic Diseases
  • Genetics
  • Hematologic Diseases
  • Human Genome
  • Neoplasms
  • Recombinant Dna
  • Sarcoma
  • Skin Diseases

Fields of Study

  • Biology

Readers

  • Molecular and genetic basis of cancer.
  • Parallel and Distributed Computing.

Technology Areas

  • Biotechnology