P53 mutation but not p16/MTS1 mutation occurs in intraductal papillary mucinous tumors of the pancreas.
OBJECTIVE
Intraductal papillary mucinous tumors of the pancreas are rare lesions, which typically show a benign clinical course. However, some of these tumors have a malignant nature and grow in an invasive manner. The purpose of the study was to determine the prevalence of p53-, p16/MTS1- and K-ras mutations in benign and malignant intraductal papillary mucinous tumors with intent to value their importance for tumor progression.


METHODS
Thirteen different archival tumor specimens were obtained at the Department of Pathology, University of Ulm. Three cases showed an invasive component of the tumor. Genomic DNA was extracted after laser capture microdissection of tumor cells from paraffin-embedded tissue sections. The corresponding sequences of p53 (exon 5, 6, 7, 8) and p16/MTS1 (exon 2) were amplified by polymerase chain reaction and subjected to single strand conformation polymorphism analysis. Codon 12 of K-ras was analyzed by the enrichment polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method. Positive samples were further investigated by sequencing.


RESULTS
K-ras mutations occurred in benign and malignant intraductal papillary mucinous tumors (4/13), whereas an alteration of the coding p53 gene sequence could only be detected in the intraductal and invasive component of one malignant tumor. None of the tissue specimens revealed mutations in exon 2 of p16/MTS1.


CONCLUSIONS
In contrast to K-ras mutations, alterations in the p53 gene may characterize ductal papillary mucinous carcinomas, which could be of major interest for their early diagnosis. The lack of mutations in the p16/MTS1 gene suggests that other genes may be involved in the formation of intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasias.
Department of Pathology, University of Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, D 89081 Ulm, Germany.
J
J
Mueller
S
S
Gansauge
T
T
Mattfeldt
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D021441:Carcinoma, Pancreatic Ductal / Q000235:genetics*; D004252:DNA Mutational Analysis; D019942:Genes, p16 / Q000502:physiology*; D016158:Genes, p53 / Q000235:genetics*; D011905:Genes, ras / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor