NONE OF THE KNOWN DIFFERENT FIBROBLAST GROWTH-FACTOR RECEPTOR-2 CARBOXY-TERMINAL TAILS ARE RESTRICTED TO CANCER-CELLS

Fibroblast growth factor receptor-2 cDNAs derived from healthy tissues code for proteins with a 63 amino acid carboxy-terminal tail. Some cD NAs isolated from human tumour cDNA libraries code for receptors with 11, 15 or 29 amino acid carboxy-terminal tails. However, the important issue as to whether these latter tails are tumour specific markers ha s remained unresolved. We show that mRNAs coding for FGFR-2 proteins w ith carboxy-terminal tails of 11, 29 and 63 amino acids are co-express ed not only in many tumour tissues but also in normal human tissues, w hile the 15 amino acid tail appears to reflect a cloning artefact.