Southern blot analysis of DNA extracted from lung cancer cell lines detected amplification of both the topoisomerase II alpha and ERBB2 genes in the adenocarcinoma line Calu3.
Therefore, we tested for possible aberrations of the c-erbB-2 gene in the region of the transmembrane domain in surgical specimens of human primary lung cancer from 190 patients, and also examined 24 metastases and 26 specimens of noncancerous portions of the lung of the same patients.
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.
We have determined the average gene copy numbers (AGCN) of the erbB-1 gene, encoding the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGF-R), the erbB-2 and the erbB-3 genes in breast, ovarian, oral, and lung cancer tissue by using double-differential PCR (ddPCR).
To investigate the potential role of the c-erbB-2/neu gene in lung cancer metastasis systematically, we introduced the human c-erbB-2/neu gene into very low p185neu-expressing NCI-H460 human non-small cell lung cancer cells and then examined the experimental metastatic potentials among the parental NCI-H460 cells and stable transfectants with increased expression of p185neu.
These experiments were conducted to determine whether p185 can be therapeutically targeted in adenocarcinoma of the lung using an anti-p185-gelonin conjugate. c-erbB-2/p185 is overexpressed in up to one third of non-small cell lung cancers.
Molecular mechanisms altered in lung cancer include induced expression of oncogenes, such as RAS, MYC, c-erbB-2, and BCL-2, and loss of tumor-suppressor genes, such as RB, p53, and p16INK4A.
Effective treatment of lung cancer cell lines growing as xenografts in nude mice was shown with Calu-3 (a lung adenocarcinoma line with high levels of p185(erbB-2) caused by gene amplification) and three other lung adenocarcinomas (A549, NCI-H1466, and 201T) with lower levels of p185(erbB-2) and no gene amplification.
The frequencies of HLA B35, B52, B62, DRB1*0404, and DRB1*0406 were higher in the ErbB-2-positive lung cancer patients than in the ErbB-2-negative lung cancer patients.
We report the effect of heregulin beta1, the ligand for erbB-3 and erbB-4 receptors, on the regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression, using a panel of breast and lung cancer cell lines with constitutive erbB-2 overexpression or engineered to stably overexpress the erbB-2 receptor.
In this report we evaluated Her-2/neu gene expression by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and the cell surface expression of the Her-2/neu receptor by immunohistochemistry using the HercepTest and by FACS analysis in 31 lung cancer cell lines with 5 breast cancer cell lines as controls.
HER-2/neu overexpression (independent of smoking) may be involved in the development/progression of lung cancer in patients with CLL, and has an associated worse outcome.
Data regarding HER2/neu expression in lung cancer are more limited, and there is little information regarding HER2/neu expression and response to trastuzumab alone or in combination with chemotherapeutic agents.
However, the frequency of a genetic aberration in the HER2 gene in lung cancer and the association between gene amplification and prognosis are poorly defined.