title: Comparison of reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR, flow cytometry, and immunohistochemistry for detection of monoclonality in lymphomas.
abstract: In healthy humans, 60-70% of the B lymphocytes produce kappa light chains, while the remaining cells produce lambda light chains. Malignant transformation and clonal expansion of B lymphocytes lead to an altered kappa : lambda expression ratio, which is an important diagnostic criteria of lymphomas. Here, we compared three methods for clonality determination of suspected B cell lymphomas. Tumor biopsies from 55 patients with B cell malignancies, 5 B-lymphoid tumor cell lines, and 20 biopsies from patients with lymphadenitis were analyzed by immunohistochemistry, flow cytometry, and reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR. Clonality was determined by immunohistochemistry in 52/53 cases, flow cytometry in 30/39 cases, and reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR in 33/55 cases. In conclusion, immunohistochemistry was superior to flow cytometry and reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR for clonality identification. Flow cytometry and reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR analysis has complementary values. In a considerable number of cases tumor cells produced both kappa and lambda light chain transcripts, but only one type of light chain peptide was produced.
authors.affiliation: Sahlgrenska Cancer Center, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden ; TATAA Biocenter, Odinsgatan 28, 411 03 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ståhlberg
authors.affiliation: Sahlgrenska Cancer Center, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Aman
authors.affiliation: Sahlgrenska Cancer Center, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden ; TATAA Biocenter, Odinsgatan 28, 411 03 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Strömbom
authors.affiliation: TATAA Biocenter, Odinsgatan 28, 411 03 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Neven
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Zoric
authors.affiliation: Sahlgrenska Cancer Center, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Alfredo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Diez
authors.affiliation: Fujirebio Diagnostics AB, Elof Lindälvs Gata 13, 402 42 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Olle
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Nilsson
authors.affiliation: TATAA Biocenter, Odinsgatan 28, 411 03 Gothenburg, Sweden ; Institute of Biotechnology AS CR, Videnska 1083, 142 20 Prague 4, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Mikael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kubista
authors.affiliation: Sahlgrenska Cancer Center, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Börje
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ridell