What Is a Fluorescent in Situ Hybridization (FISH) Test?
More Programs and Publications Featuring Dr. Kyle Riding
In this program:
Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) tests are another type of lab test. Watch as medical laboratory scientist Dr. Kyle Riding explains what cytogeneticists look for in FISH tests.
Transcript
Leo Hesse:
Amazing, thank you for that. Can you also tell us what a fluorescent in situ hybridization test, also known as FISH in short?
Dr. Kyle Riding:
So FISH are something that swim in the ocean and also something we love to do in the lab. Now, the FISH testing, so far we've spoken about the DNA level of things, or the RNA level of things, so we're done to these very small units of your entire genome, these little individual genes is what we've talked about so far. The PCR and reverse transcriptase, PCR and all that fun stuff. Discussed so far, FISH on the other hand, is looking at a higher level of organization, it's looking at structural units of DNA that are noticed chromosomes. I'm sure you've heard about chromosomes, so what we're doing with FISH technology is actually looking for changes to the structure of the actual chromosomes in a patient, typically because there's a malignancy that we're looking for, and so what we're using are these little fluorescent tags that will find that abnormal chromosomal anatomy, tag it and light up under a microscope, and someone...specialists in our field, called a cytogeneticist can then sit back and actually identify if those fluorescent tags are present and give the physicians the information on what chromosomal aberrations are present.
Leo Hesse:
Fantastic, thank you.
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