The expression of the human cyclin BI gene was investigated with Weste
rn blot analysis in human colorectal carcinomas and in adjacent non-ne
oplastic colorectal mucosas. Out of 41 cancers, 36 (88% of patients) s
howed much higher expression of cyclin B1 than did the non-neoplastic
mucosa. Proliferating-cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) immunohistochemistry
revealed that the labeling indexes of these cancer tissues were 47.3
+/- 11.3% while those of the mucose were 15.6 +/- 5.5%. Only 5 cancers
(12% patients) demonstrated the same expression level of cyclin BI as
the mucosa; however, the PCNA labeling indexes were 42.3 +/- 11% for
the cancer tissue, compared to 12.6 +/- 2.4% for the mucosas. Southern
blot analysis showed that there was no change of the cyclin B1 gene a
t the somatic DNA level in spite of its high expression at the protein
level. These results proved that majority of colorectal cancers expre
ss high levels of cyclin B1, consistent with a high rate of cell proli
feration, whereas a small fraction of these cancers lose control of cy
clin B1 expression, diverging from their fast cell proliferation.