Carcinoma of the uterine cervix is a common malignancy among women that has
been found to show loss of heterozygosity in the chromosome 11p. Recent st
udies have localized the TSG101 gene in this region, and also demonstrated
a high frequency of abnormalities of this gene in human breast cancer. To d
etermine the role of the TSG101 gene in the carcinogenesis of cervical and
uterine carcinoma, 19 cases of cervical carcinoma and five cases of endomet
rial carcinoma,as well as nearby non-cancerous tissue from the same patient
s, and 16 blood samples from healthy persons as normal control were analyse
d by Southern blot analysis of genomic DNA, reverse transcription of the TS
G101 mRNA followed by PCR amplification and sequencing of the products. We
found that abnormal transcripts of the TSG101 gene were common both in canc
erous or non-cancerous tissues of the uterus and cervix and in normal perip
heral mononuclear cells. There was no genomic deletion or rearrangement in
spite of the presence of abnormal transcripts, and no definite relationship
between the abnormal transcripts and HPV infection was found. Although the
frequency of abnormal transcripts was higher in cancerous than in non-canc
erous tissue, normal peripheral mononuclear cells also had abnormal transcr
ipts. Given these findings, the role of the TSG101 gene as a tumour-suppres
sor gene should be re-evaluated. Because some aberrant transcripts could be
found at the first PCR reaction, we suggest that the aberrant transcripts
might be the result of imperfect minor splicesome products.