ヒト骨肉腫細胞における癌抑制遺伝子の関与

抄録

Inactivation of two tumor suppressor genes, RB and p53, is associated with tumor formation. To elucidate the molecular basis of the tumorigenesis of human osteosarcoma, structural and expressional alterations of these two genes were examined in five human osteosarcoma cell lines, two of which were from Japanese patients. In addition, I analyzed two adenovirus E1A. binding proteins, p107 and p300, putative “tumor suppressor gene products”, which share similar properties with the RB protein in binding to the E1A oncoprotein. Detailed analyses of the DNA, mRNA, and protein showed that (1) 3 lines including both Japanese lines lost the expression of the RB protein due to either the absence or the alteration of mRNA caused by DNA rearrangement, (2) abnormality of p53 gene was detected in all cell lines : 4 lines lost p53 expression due to either gene loss or the absence of mRNA, and one line expressed an abnormal form of the protein without detectable DNA and mRNA alterations and (3) no significant alteration of p107 or p300 was detected in all cell lines. These results further confirm that inactivating mutations of p53 and RB genes are deeply involved in the carcinogenesis of human osteosarcoma and suggest that p107 and p300 may not play a role in the tumorigenesis.