Biol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 October 15.Salk and HorwitzPageexperimental pipeline to screen for poly(dG) slippage mutations as a biomarker of preneoplastic clones in ulcerative colitis (UC) [23]. We genotyped 28 non-coding poly(dG) repeats of 12 or more residues in DNA from non-dysplastic colon biopsies of 19 individuals with UC by multiplex capillary fragment analysis. Half of these patients had cancer or advanced dysplasia in other portions of their colon and half had no histologically identifiable MG516 chemical information malignancies. Of the mutations found, 97 occurred in the cancer group. Whereas only one biopsy from one non-cancer individual bore a mutant marker, every single cancer-affected patient had at least one clonal field detectable by mutations in non-dysplastic colonic mucosa as much as 80 cm away from the cancer site. Of the thousands of genotypings carried out, only about 1 were mutant relative to the germline, yet approximately 2/3rds of all nondysplastic biopsies taken from the cancer group carried a mutation in at least one of the 28 markers, indicating a clonal derivation. This study illustrates the critical importance of high-throughput screening when relying upon random passenger mutations for clone detection. There are more than 3300 comparable poly(dG) tracts in the human genome and efforts by our group to be able to simultaneously screen the majority of these with even higher-throughput methods are ongoing.NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript6. Mitochondrial mutationsA heritable genetic component of nearly all human cells that is often overlooked is that of the mtDNA. The mitochondrial genome is a 16.5 kb circular loop of DNA that is replicated by organelle-specific machinery independently of the cell cycle. Each cell contains multiple mitochondria and each mitochondria may contain up to ten genomes, bringing the copy number of mtDNA genomes per cell into the hundreds for some tissues [73]. As with nuclear mutations, mtDNA mutations are ARA290 chemical information passed on to daughter cells during cell division, thus serving as a marker of cell lineage. Yet because mitochondria appear to lack the complex DNA repair machinery of the nucleus and mtDNA is continually exposed to reactive oxygen intermediates from the electron transport chain and is unprotected by histones, the per-base-pair mutation rate is significantly higher than that of the nuclear genome [74]. There have been many reports of mitochondrial mutations in cancers of all varieties [75], and more recently, in fields surrounding tumors themselves. Sidransky’s group sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome from lung tumors and histologically normal respiratory epithelium in the lungs of long-time smokers [76]. Multiple mtDNA mutations were found in non-dysplastic mucosa which were identical to those from nearby cancers. In another study, the same group looked at tumors, negative surgical margins and peripheral lymphocytes from 50 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck that recurred after an initial surgery [77]. Of these patients, approximately half had at least one mtDNA mutation in the cancer relative to the control tissue, and of these, approximately half were also found in the histologically negative margins. An elegant technique, developed over the last several years, uses spontaneously-arising mutations in the mitochondrially-encoded cytochrome c oxidase gene (COX1) to directly visualize cell lineage relationships.Biol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 October 15.Salk and HorwitzPageexperimental pipeline to screen for poly(dG) slippage mutations as a biomarker of preneoplastic clones in ulcerative colitis (UC) [23]. We genotyped 28 non-coding poly(dG) repeats of 12 or more residues in DNA from non-dysplastic colon biopsies of 19 individuals with UC by multiplex capillary fragment analysis. Half of these patients had cancer or advanced dysplasia in other portions of their colon and half had no histologically identifiable malignancies. Of the mutations found, 97 occurred in the cancer group. Whereas only one biopsy from one non-cancer individual bore a mutant marker, every single cancer-affected patient had at least one clonal field detectable by mutations in non-dysplastic colonic mucosa as much as 80 cm away from the cancer site. Of the thousands of genotypings carried out, only about 1 were mutant relative to the germline, yet approximately 2/3rds of all nondysplastic biopsies taken from the cancer group carried a mutation in at least one of the 28 markers, indicating a clonal derivation. This study illustrates the critical importance of high-throughput screening when relying upon random passenger mutations for clone detection. There are more than 3300 comparable poly(dG) tracts in the human genome and efforts by our group to be able to simultaneously screen the majority of these with even higher-throughput methods are ongoing.NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript6. Mitochondrial mutationsA heritable genetic component of nearly all human cells that is often overlooked is that of the mtDNA. The mitochondrial genome is a 16.5 kb circular loop of DNA that is replicated by organelle-specific machinery independently of the cell cycle. Each cell contains multiple mitochondria and each mitochondria may contain up to ten genomes, bringing the copy number of mtDNA genomes per cell into the hundreds for some tissues [73]. As with nuclear mutations, mtDNA mutations are passed on to daughter cells during cell division, thus serving as a marker of cell lineage. Yet because mitochondria appear to lack the complex DNA repair machinery of the nucleus and mtDNA is continually exposed to reactive oxygen intermediates from the electron transport chain and is unprotected by histones, the per-base-pair mutation rate is significantly higher than that of the nuclear genome [74]. There have been many reports of mitochondrial mutations in cancers of all varieties [75], and more recently, in fields surrounding tumors themselves. Sidransky’s group sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome from lung tumors and histologically normal respiratory epithelium in the lungs of long-time smokers [76]. Multiple mtDNA mutations were found in non-dysplastic mucosa which were identical to those from nearby cancers. In another study, the same group looked at tumors, negative surgical margins and peripheral lymphocytes from 50 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck that recurred after an initial surgery [77]. Of these patients, approximately half had at least one mtDNA mutation in the cancer relative to the control tissue, and of these, approximately half were also found in the histologically negative margins. An elegant technique, developed over the last several years, uses spontaneously-arising mutations in the mitochondrially-encoded cytochrome c oxidase gene (COX1) to directly visualize cell lineage relationships.
