MUTATION ANALYSIS OF THE PUTATIVE TUMOR-SUPPRESSOR PTEN MMAC1 IN HUMAN OVARIAN-CANCER/

A putative tumor suppressor, PTEN/MMAC1 gene was recently identified a t 10q23 and was found to be frequently altered in several types of hum an tumors. To determine the possible role of this gene in human ovaria n tumors, we screened 31 unselected primary epithelial ovarian cancers with matched normal tissues and 7 ovarian cancer cell lines. Two homo zygous deletions (4.8%) were detected in primary ovarian tumors by a s emi-quantitative multiplex polymerase chain reaction. However, no poin t mutations were observed in any of the PTEN/MMAC1 coding sequences as determined by denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography and D NA sequencing. These data indicate that PTEN/MMAC1 mutations are rare in ovarian cancers.