Detection of mutations in the RB1 gene by single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis, amplification mismatch detection (AMD) analysis and polymerase chain reaction sequencing.

Mutations of the retinoblastoma gene are known to cause both nonhereditary and hereditary forms of retinoblastoma. Most patients with hereditary retinoblastoma have bilateral disease. Hereditary predisposition to retinoblastoma is caused by a germline mutation at the retinoblastoma gene locus (RB1) and transmitted as an autosomal dominant trait with 90% penetrance. Three quarters of these alterations represent de novo mutations. Since 75% of these cases are new mutations, there is a need for methods which can be used to identify carriers, so that informed genetic counselling will be available to patients and close relatives. In the present study, leukocyte DNA and RNA from 5 patients with sporadic bilateral retinoblastoma. were subjected to single stranded conformation analysis (SSCP) and amplification and mismatch detection (AMD) analysis. SSCP band shifts were found in 3 of the 5 patients. AMD was applied to reverse-transcriptase PCR and exons of the RB1 gene in the patients with bilateral retinoblastoma. Cleavage was found in 2 patients. Neither of these patients corresponded to the 3 with SSCP band shifts. Thus in total, 5 patients with retinoblastoma had mutations detected by a combination of SSCP and AMD analysis, and proof was sought by means of sequencing. This approach has proved to be a useful method for the rapid detection of mutations in the RB1 gene. The five mutations detected in this study were all novel and emphasise the heterogeneity of the molecular pathology in this gene.

Aberrant RNA splicing in the hMSH2 gene: molecular identification of three aberrant RNA in Scottish patients with colorectal cancer in the West of Scotland.

Blood samples from 47 unselected patients with colorectal cancer were used as a source of hMSH2 mRNA. We identified three new hMSH2 aberrant mRNAs including: 1) IVS15 +5 G-->C resulting in exon 15 skipping from transcript; 2) an mRNA deletion of exons 2 to 6 inclusive; and 3) an mRNA deletion of exons 2 to 8 inclusive. In order to find out whether or not exon skipping is a natural consequence of alternative mRNA splicing, total RNA from 20 healthy individuals was converted to cDNA by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, and our results show that none of the healthy individuals have the above aberrant mRNA. Our results also show that the presence of mutations in colorectal cancer cases, which do not fully meet the hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer criteria, would suggest that all familial cases should be investigated for germ line mutations in the mismatch repair genes.

Interleukin-1 polymorphisms associated with increased risk of gastric cancer.

Helicobacter pylori infection is associated with a variety of clinical outcomes including gastric cancer and duodenal ulcer disease. The reasons for this variation are not clear, but the gastric physiological response is influenced by the severity and anatomical distribution of gastritis induced by H. pylori. Thus, individuals with gastritis predominantly localized to the antrum retain normal (or even high) acid secretion, whereas individuals with extensive corpus gastritis develop hypochlorhydria and gastric atrophy, which are presumptive precursors of gastric cancer. Here we report that interleukin-1 gene cluster polymorphisms suspected of enhancing production of interleukin-1-beta are associated with an increased risk of both hypochlorhydria induced by H. pylori and gastric cancer. Two of these polymorphism are in near-complete linkage disequilibrium and one is a TATA-box polymorphism that markedly affects DNA-protein interactions in vitro. The association with disease may be explained by the biological properties of interleukin-1-beta, which is an important pro-inflammatory cytokine and a powerful inhibitor of gastric acid secretion. Host genetic factors that affect interleukin-1-beta may determine why some individuals infected with H. pylori develop gastric cancer while others do not.

Presence of gene for beta globin in homozygous beta0 thalassaemia.

In one southern Italian and one Pakistani patient with homozygous beta0 thalassaemia in which no detectable beta-globin synthesis occurs and no beta-globin messenger RNA is found, the gene for beta globin has been shown to be present using complementary DNA. This demonstrates that for these patients the imbalance in chain synthesis is not attributable to a gene deletion.