Antigen Background Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is a heterogeneous cell surface glycoprotein produced by cells of fetal colon. Low levels are also found on normal mucosal epithelia of the adult colon and a variety of other normal tissues. CEA is encoded by the CEA gene, which is located on chromosome 19. It is a member of the CEA gene family, which in turn is a subfamily of the immunoglobulin superfamily. Cell adhesion properties are now well r...

Antigen Background Alpha-methylacyl-CoA racemase (AMACR), also known as p504s, is a mitochondrial and peroxisomal enzyme that is involved in bile acid biosynthesis and beta-oxidation of branched-chain fatty acids. AMACR is essential in lipid metabolism, and is expressed in normal liver (hepatocytes), kidney (tubular epithelial cells) and gall bladder (epithelial cells). Expression has also been found in lung (bronchial epithelial cells) and colon...

Antigen Background Geminin is a protein of 209 amino acids thought to be involved in the control of DNA replication via the interaction with Cdt1. Geminin is not found in the G1 phase of the cell cycle, but is first expressed in the G1 to S transition phase, with expression levels rising through the rest of the cell cycle and levels reaching a maximum during mitosis. It has been proposed that geminin may be a tumor suppressor protein. Geminin is ...

Antigen BackgroundMuc-4 (Mucin 4) is an O-glycoprotein that consists of a large extracellular glycosylated subunit, transmembrane domain and intracellular domain. MUC4 is known to play a protective role for cell membrane and has anti-adhesive properties. It is understood to play a role in cancer progression, facilitating tumour progression via apoptosis inhibition. MUC4 is aberrantly expressed in several cancers including those of the bile duct, ...

Deletions affecting the long arm of chromosome 6 (6q) involving band 6q21 are among the most commonly observed chromosomal aberrations in lymphoid malignancies and have been identified as adverse prognostic factor in subsets of tumors. Amplification of MYC (8q24) has been described in many types of solid tumors, such as breast, cervical and colon cancers, as well as in myeloma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, gastric adenocarcinomas and ovarian cancer. T...

Antigen Background Galectin-3 is a member of the beta-galactosidase-binding lectin family. It is involved in several biological events including binding to the basement membrane glycoprotein laminin. Cell surface galectin-3 may be involved in homotypical cell adhesion and is downregulated in colon cancer as the disease progresses. This downregulation has also been examined in breast carcinoma with a similar correlation of expression reported. Dow...

Antigen Background MLH1, a mismatch repair protein involved in maintaining the integrity of genetic information, alongside MSH2, MSH6 and PMS2. During DNA replication, strand misalignment can occur resulting in alterations to microsatellite repeats, often referred to as microsatellite instability (MSI). These defects in DNA repair pathways have been linked to human carcinogenesis. Mutations in the MLH1 gene have been reported to be found in some ...

Aurora kinase A (AURKA) gene amplification has been detected in approximately 12% of primary breast tumors, as well as in bladder, ovarian, colon, prostate, neuroblastoma and cervical cancer cell lines. The AURKA (20q13)/20q11 probe is designed to detect copy numbers of the AURKA gene region at region 20q13. The AURKA (20q13) FISH probe is optimized to detect copy numbers of the AURKA gene region at region 20q13. The 20q11 specific DNA probe is i...

Antigen Background Human mismatch repair protein 2 (MSH2) is involved in the initial recognition of mismatched nucleotides during the post replication mismatch repair process. Therefore, the loss of MSH2 function leads to the accumulation of replication errors, which in turn may be responsible for the multiple mutations required for multistage carcinogenesis. MSH2 is reported to be expressed in the nuclei of cells from a variety of tissues includ...

The ERBB2 (or HER2) gene encodes a receptor tyrosine kinase involved in growth factor signaling. Overexpression of this gene is seen in about 20% of invasive breast cancers. ERBB2 gene amplification is a permanent genetic change that results in this continuous overexpression of ERBB2. ERBB2 amplification is also observed in a variety of other tumors, such as gastric, prostate, lung, colon and ovary carcinoma. The ERBB2 (17q12) FISH probe is optim...