ORIGINAL ARTICLE TISSUE-PRESERVING APPROACH TO EXTRACTING DNA FROM PARAFFIN-EMBEDDED SPECIMENS USING TISSUE MICROARRAY TECHNOLOGY

Abstract: Background. DNA extracted from tumor cells or normal cells contained in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tis-sues is widely used in many laboratories. The 2 most common procedures to isolate cells for DNA extraction from paraffin-em-bedded tissues are scalpel microdissection and laser capture microdissection. A new tissue- and time-conserving method for rapid DNA isolation from small cores taken from paraffin-embed-ded tissue blocks is described in this report. Methods. DNA was extracted from small tissue cores col-lected from paraffin-embedded tissue blocks at the time of tis-sue microarray construction. The quality and quantity of the DNA extracted was compared to DNA collected by scalpel microdis-section. DNA collected from tissue cores was used in polymer-ase chain reaction (PCR) and loss of heterozygosity (LOH) analysis