INFREQUENT GENETIC ALTERATIONS OF THE PTEN MMAC1 GENE IN JAPANESE PATIENTS WITH PRIMARY CANCERS OF THE BREAST, LUNG, PANCREAS, KIDNEY, AND OVARY/

In the present study, we searched for genetic alterations of the entir e coding region of PTEN/MMAC1, a recently isolated candidate tumor sup pressor gene, in 178 specimens from Japanese patients with various mal ignant tumors by the polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformat ion polymorphism method. The samples consisted of 11 glioblastoma mult iformes (GBMs), 14 astrocytomas, 47 breast cancers, 25 non-small cell lung cancers, 9 small cell lung cancers, 8 pancreatic cancers, 24 rena l cell carcinomas, 20 ovarian cancers, and 20 metastatic lung tumors f rom various organs. Only one somatic frameshift mutation at codon 319 was observed in one (9%) of eleven GBMs. Our results suggest that muta tion of the PTEN/MMAC1 gene does not play a major role in carcinogenes is, at least in the tumor types from Japanese patients analyzed in thi s study.