Abstract
We studied non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) from 60 patients for abnormalities in the c-erbB-2 gene. Eleven human lung cancer cell lines, including four derived from small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and seven derived from NSCLC were also examined for altered c-erbB-2 gene expression. Southern blot analysis of paired tumor and normal lung samples demonstrated that amplification of the c-erbB-2 gene is rare in NSCLC (2/60) and not restricted to adenocarcinomas. One patient showed an EcoRI restriction fragment length polymorphism for the c-erbB-2 locus. Four of four SCLC cell lines demonstrated minimal or nondetectable expression of c-erbB-2 mRNA compared to high levels of expression by seven of seven NSCLC lines. The highest expression levels were seen in four of four adenocarcinomas. We conclude that c-erbB-2 expression is different in SCLC compared to NSCLC and high expression of c-erbB-2 is consistently present in lung adenocarcinomas.
Footnotes
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↵2 Supported by NCI Grant CA45187-01.
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↵3 Supported by Grants NCI CA45265-01 and ACS-CD-360, NIH Grants RR5511-23, and the Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award 5-621 from the March of Dimes Foundation.
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↵4 Recipient of a Rosalie B. Hite Graduate Fellowship.
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↵5 To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at Department of Thoracic Surgery, Box 109, The University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Houston, TX 77030.
- Received March 1, 1989.
- Revision received June 5, 1989.
- Accepted June 16, 1989.
- ©1989 American Association for Cancer Research.