MUTATIONS OF THE ADENOMATOUS POLYPOSIS-COLI GENE IN THE MUTATION CLUSTER REGION - COMPARISON OF HUMAN PANCREATIC AND COLORECTAL CANCERS

We analyzed the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) tumor-suppressor gene as one of the possible genes mutated in human pancreatic carcinomas. DNAs from 39 surgical specimens were subjected to single-strand confor mation polymorphism analysis of polymerase chain reaction products and the mutation cluster region (MCR) of the gene was examined. We also e xamined the same region of DNAs from 27 surgical specimens of sporadic colon carcinomas and detected mutations in II carcinomas (41%). This mutation frequency in colon carcinomas was similar to those reported p reviously. Using this system, we detected a mutated APC gene in one of 39 pancreatic carcinomas. The results indicated that mutation of the MCR in the APC gene is involved in genesis of some of human pancreatic carcinomas, but its frequency is much lower than in colorectal carcin omas. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.