title: c-fos oncogene underexpression in salivary gland tumors as measured by in situ hybridization.
abstract: Tissue from 35 salivary gland tumors and 14 normal salivary glands was analyzed by in situ hybridization and computer-assisted morphometry for the expression of the c-fos oncogene. The normal salivary gland tissues were found to express c-fos focally, mainly in the acinar secretory cells. The majority of the cells in the normal tissues showed a high level of expression (47.74 +/- 5.31% of cells had 46 to 60 grains per cell and another 45.79 +/- 2.18% showed > 60 grains per cell). All the tumors examined exhibited a relatively low, uniform distribution of c-fos expression. For example, in the poorly differentiated adenocarcinomas, 96.83 +/- 04% of the cells were found to have < 15 grains per cell. A general linear model for multivariate analysis showed a significant difference between the various tumor types and the normal salivary gland tissues (P = 0.0001). These data support the hypothesis that salivary gland tumors belong to a group of epithelial neoplasias in which the loss of cellular differentiation is linked with underexpression of the c-fos oncogene.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Pathology, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Birek
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lui
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dardick
mesh_terms: D001345:Autoradiography; D015870:Gene Expression; D016762:Genes, fos; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012016:Reference Values; D012468:Salivary Gland Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D012469:Salivary Glands / Q000503:physiopathology