The results suggest that p53 overexpression may be related to genetic predisposition to colorectal cancer, and p53-positive and p53-negative colorectal cancers may be controlled by different aetiological pathways.
We concluded that the co-operation between ras oncogene and p53 gene hotspot point mutations in the tumorigenesis of colorectal cancer in Chinese was not common.
Tumor tissues were evaluated by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of chromosomes 5q, 17p, 18q, and 22q (n = 98), by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis of messenger RNA expression of the DCC gene (deleted in colorectal carcinoma) (n = 27) and by immunohistochemical analysis of p53 protein expression (n = 44).
This study investigates in 47 colorectal carcinomas the relationship between stabilised p53 protein detected by immunocytochemistry (ICC), and p53 mutation.
Hence, as "adenoma-carcinoma sequence" model of development of colorectal carcinoma, inactivation of the APC and p53 genes appear to be involved in development of the de novo type of colorectal carcinoma even though the adenoma stage is not observed.
These data confirm that the TP53 gene is the target of loss on chromosome arm 17p in colorectal carcinomas, and demonstrate that loss of the TP53 gene is most frequently part of limited, subchromosomal loss.
These results suggest that concordant p53 and DCC alterations and inactivation of several other tumor-suppressor genes, especially those on chromosomes 13q and 14q, play important roles in the acquisition of metastatic potential of colorectal carcinoma.
The authors had previously reported that the accumulation of p53 is clearly demonstrable in microwave-fixed, paraffin-embedded sections of colorectal carcinomas.
We have analyzed K-ras mutations and p53 alterations in 39 tumor and nontumor samples taken from nine patients with longstanding ulcerative colitis and colorectal carcinoma.
Positive p53 immunostaining was associated with the diffuse histological subtype in gastric carcinoma (p = 0.05) and high histological grade in colorectal carcinoma (p = 0.04).
All p53 mutations but one were detected in a highly conserved region, and the predominant form of the mutations was G:C-->A:T transition at CpG sites in both Japanese and Thai cases, similar to that reported for colorectal cancers.
Eighty-three percent of mutations in early gastric cancer and 52% of mutations in advanced gastric cancer showed G:C-to-A:T transition, almost exclusively at CpG dinucleotide mutational hot spots, indicating that the spectrum of p53 mutation was similar to that of colorectal cancer.