Development and clinical significance of FISH technique for detecting PTPRZ1-MET fusion gene in glioma patients

Objective To establish a method for detecting the PTPRZ1-MET fusion gene in patients with glioma via fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), and to explore its feasibility and clinical application. Methods The expression of PTPRZ1-MET fusion gene in glioma patients was detected by two-color FISH method. The result comparison was performed between FISH and polymerase chain reaction/Sanger sequencing (PCR/Sanger) to analyze the correlation of these two methods. Results The results of PCR/Sanger and FISH methods showed that the percentage of PTPRZ1-MET fusion gene positive cells was greater than 20% in patients defined as PTPRZ1-MET positive with 30-cycle-PCR/Sanger; the percentage in patients defined as PTPRZ1-MET positive with 50-cycle-PCR/Sanger was about 10%; and the percentage was less than 5% in patients defined as PTPRZ1-MET negative in PCR/Sanger method. There was significant difference between any two groups (all P<0.05). Conclusions The detection of PTPRZ1-MET fusion gene in glioma patients with FISH method seems consistent with that of PCR/Sanger method, which indicates that the FISH method could serve as a supplementary tool in initial screening for the patient's diagnosis. Key words: Glioma; In situ hybridization, fluorescence; Polymerase chain reaction; PTPRZ1-MET fusion gene