title: Mutated c-K-ras in small pancreatic adenocarcinomas.
abstract: The objective of this study was to determine whether small human pancreatic adenocarcinomas contain activated c-K-ras as an approach to answering the question of whether c-K-ras mutation is an early change in this disease. Eight pancreatic adenocarcinomas in the range 1.2-3 cm were analyzed for c-K-ras mutation at codon 12 by amplifying the c-K-ras gene around codon 12 out of paraffin-embedded tissue sections using the polymerase chain reaction. c-K-ras mutations were detected by allele-specific oligonucleotide hybridization. Six of the eight small pancreatic adenocarcinomas contained mutated c-K-ras at codon 12, position 2, and two of the six tumors had an additional mutation at position 1 of codon 12. Our results indicate that small pancreatic adenocarcinomas are similar to large, late-stage pancreatic adenocarcinomas in that 75% of the tumors analyzed contain mutated c-K-ras at codon 12, position 2. These data suggest that c-K-ras mutation occurs early and may therefore have a role in initiation of human pancreatic adenocarcinoma.
authors.affiliation: Dartmouth Hitchock Medical Center, Department of Pathology, Lebanon, New Hampshire 03756.
authors.forename: B K
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Schaeffer
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Glasner
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kuhlmann
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Myles
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Longnecker
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000235:genetics*; D001483:Base Sequence; D011905:Genes, ras; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*