Amplification of the N-myc oncogene in an adenocarcinoma of the lung

✍ Scribed by Kalle Saksela; Jonas Bergh; Kenneth Nilsson

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 519 KB
• Volume: 31
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0730-2312
• DOI: 10.1002/jcb.240310407

✦ Synopsis

c-myc oncogene is the most extensively studied member of the myc gene family, which now consists of three characterized members, namely the c-myc, N-myc, and L-myc genes. Deregulation owing to amplification and/or rearrangements of the c-myc gene have been described in a variety of human malignancies. Several neuroblastomas have amplifications of the N-myc genes. The c-myc, N-myc, or L-myc oncogenes are also found amplified in different cell lines from small cell carcinomas of the lung. In this study, we have examined the c-myc, N-myc, and c-erbB oncogenes in 34 clinical and autopsy tumor specimens representing various histopathological types of human lung cancer, including nine small cell lung cancers. A 30-fold amplification of the N-myc gene was found in a tumor histopathologically and histochemically verified as a typical adenocarcinoma. No amplifications of the c-myc or c-erbB oncogenes were seen in any of the tumors. In the DNA of one small cell carcinoma, an extra c-myc and N-myc crosshybridizing restriction fragment was observed, possibly owing to an amplification of a yet uncharacterized myc-related gene.