Our results suggest that: (a) alteration of the p16 gene is infrequent in primary soft-tissue sarcoma; (b) Cdk4 may act as an oncogene in soft-tissue sarcoma; and (c) elevated p16 and RB levels might be the result of compensatory up-regulation of these proteins to counteract CDK4 overexpression in these tumors.
Southern blotting detected complete deletion of p15INK4B and p16INK4 genes in osteosarcomas from 2 patients and a soft tissue sarcoma from another individual.