[Anonymous]

What does tetrasomy mean?

by Anonymous on Thu Jan 08, 2015 2:51 pm

What does tetrasomy mean? My test showed trisomy and tetrasomy for chromosomes 9 and 15.

[Mister Dana]

Re: What does tetrasomy mean?

by Mister Dana on Thu Jan 08, 2015 2:57 pm

Trisomy means three copies (of a chromosome) instead of two. Tetrasomy must mean four copies.

[Jonah]

Re: What does tetrasomy mean?

by Jonah on Fri Jan 09, 2015 3:39 pm

Mister Dana is correct, at least according to Wikipedia, which says that tetrasomy is "the presence of four copies, instead of the normal two, of a particular chromosome." Here's the reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrasomy

German researchers found that, among 50 newly diagnosed myeloma patients they checked in detail for chromosome 11 abnormalities, 6 of the patients, or 12%, had a tetrasomy or partial tetrasomy, of chromosome 11.

FW Cremer et al, "High incidence and intraclonal heterogeneity of chromosome 11 aberrations in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma detected by multiprobe interphase FISH," Cancer Genetics, September 2005 (abstract).

I am not able to tell from the abstract of the paper whether tetrasomy had any particular impact on patient prognosis.