The fact that sarcomatous or anaplastic carcinomatous mural nodules in ovarian mucinous tumors display the same K-RAS mutations as their underlying mucinous neoplasms provides supportive evidence that at least some malignant mural nodules represent a form of dedifferentiation in ovarian mucinous tumors, rather than a collision of 2 divergent tumor types.
Stable expression of EGFP-K-Ras (V12) down-regulated the activity of Rac1 and RhoA, resulting in reduced subcortical actin filaments and stress fibers, which might contribute to the epithelial dedifferentiation.
This study demonstrates a statistical correlation between intratumoural differences in neoplastic degree of dedifferentiation and genetic instability in terms of LOH and point mutations of the k-ras gene in colorectal carcinoma.