Real-time PCR complements immunohistochemistry in the determination of HER-2/neu status in breast cancer

BACKGROUND: The clinical benefit of determining the status of HER-2/neu amplification in breast cancer patients is well accepted. Although immunohistochemistry (IHC) is the most frequently used method to assess the over-expression of HER-2 protein, fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH) is recognized as the "gold standard" for the determining of HER-2/neu status. The greatest discordance between the two methods occurs among breast tumors that receive an indeterminate IHC score of 2+. More recently, a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay using the LightCycler(® )has been developed for quantifying HER-2/neu gene amplification. In this study, we evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of a commercially available LightCycler assay as it compares to FISH. To determine whether this assay provides an accurate alternative for the determination of HER-2/neu status, we focused primarily on tumors that were deemed indeterminate or borderline status by IHC. METHODS: Thirty-nine breast tumors receiving an IHC score of 2+ were evaluated by both FISH and LightCycler(® )technologies in order to determine whether quantitative real-time PCR provides an accurate alternative for the determination of HER-2/neu status. RESULTS: We found a high concordance (92%) between FISH and real-time PCR results. We also observed that 10% of these tumors were positive for gene amplification by both FISH and real-time PCR. CONCLUSION: The data show that the results obtained for the gene amplification of HER-2/neu by real-time PCR on the LightCycler(® )instrument is comparable to results obtained by FISH. These results therefore suggest that real-time PCR analysis, using the LightCycler(®), is a viable alternative to FISH for reassessing breast tumors which receive an IHC score of 2+, and that a combined IHC and real-time PCR approach for the determination of HER-2 status in breast cancer patients may be an effective and efficient strategy

Functionalization of carbon nanowalls by plasma jet in liquid treatment

Submerged in liquid plasma treatment is a new approach for nanomaterials functionalization. This paper presents a surfactant free method for functionalization of graphene nano-platelets derived from carbon nanowalls through plasma jet treatment of their water suspensions. The untreated and under-liquid plasma treated suspensions were characterized in terms of their UV-Vis absorption, zeta-size, zeta-potential, pH, and conductivity. Investigation of dried material revealed that the graphene nano-sheets morphology and structure have been preserved, showing also new oxygen functional groups bonded to the carbon network after in liquid plasma treatment. The results demonstrate the efficiency of this technique in changing the properties of carbon nanowalls suspensions and also in getting functionalized multilayered graphene sheets