title: Radiation-associated and 'spontaneous' human thyroid carcinomas show a different pattern of ras oncogene mutation.
abstract: Activated ras oncogenes in experimentally induced rodent tumours have been demonstrated to show specific patterns of oncogene activation which depend on the inducing agent, with H-ras activation in nitrosomethylurea (NMU) induced tumours, and K-ras activation in tumours induced by ionising radiation. We report a study of 12 radiation-associated human thyroid tumours, using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of paraffin-embedded material and allele-specific hybridisation with mutant-specific probes for the 3 ras oncogenes. Compared to 68 'spontaneous' human thyroid tumours, the radiation-associated cases show the same overall prevalence of ras mutation. However there is a significantly higher rate of K-ras mutation in radiation-associated follicular carcinomas than in 'spontaneous' follicular carcinomas (60% compared to 6%, P less than 0.05), suggesting that radiation may preferentially activate K-ras in human as well as rodent tumours.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University of Wales College of Medicine, Heath Park, Cardiff, UK.
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: E D
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: N R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Lemoine
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wynford-Thomas
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000209:etiology / Q000235:genetics*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000483:Alleles; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000209:etiology / Q000235:genetics*; D002291:Carcinoma, Papillary / Q000209:etiology / Q000235:genetics*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D011905:Genes, ras / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009154:Mutation; D009381:Neoplasms, Radiation-Induced / Q000235:genetics*; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013964:Thyroid Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology / Q000235:genetics*