Mutation and transcription analyses of the p63 gene in cervical carcinoma

Genetic mutation of p53, which monitors DNA damage and operates cellular ch eckpoints, is a major factor in the development of human malignancies. A no vel gene p63/p73L/p51, encoding a protein with significant homology to p53 and p73, was recently identified at 3q27-9. To investigate the penetration of p63 in cervical carcinogenesis, mutation and transcription analyses of p 63 were performed in cervical carcinoma. A certain isotype of p63 called TA p63 gamma encodes the acidic N-terminus and possesses a short C-terminus. U sing reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction-single strand conforma tion polymorphism (RT-PCR-SSCP) analysis for TAp63 gamma, one mutation was found in the cervical carcinoma cell line SKG-I. However, no mutations caus ing amino acid substitutions or frameshifts were found in 54 cases examined for TAp63 gamma, which is thought to be a tumor suppressor gene. While cer vical carcinomas tended to yield a positive signal in the RT-PCR reaction d esigned to amplify transcripts encoding the acidic N-terminus, normal cervi x and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) did not express this transcr ipt. These data suggest that the p63 gene does not play an essential role a s a tumor suppressor gene, but expression of TAp63 gamma may be speculative ly associated with tumor growth in cervical carcinogenesis.