We investigated the amplification and expression of oncogenes in human gastric and breast cancers. The biological malignancy of the cases with oncogene amplification/expression was higher than that of the cases without amplification/expression. Moreover, the case with amplification/expression of oncogene was found to be highly correlated with distant organ metastasis. In strongly suggests the necessity of postoperative adjuvant therapy. In addition, these data will have to be taken into consideration as deciding on the way of operation and therapy.

We examined 77 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines for mutations of 3 ras genes and p53 gene, and ras mutations were detected by designed RFLP assay generated by mismatched primers during the PCR step and p53 gene mutations were detected using SSCP analysis. The incidence of ras mutations were 27/77 (35%) while that of p53 gene mutations were 57/77 (74%). The incidence of ras mutations in cell lines with p53 mutations were not different from that without p53 mutations, suggesting that they occurred independently. Neither ras nor p53 mutations correlated with histologic subtype, disease extent, in vitro culture time nor prior therapy status. The patients whose cell lines had any ras mutations survived for shorter period of time not only among the patients who were treated with curative intent but among those treated with palliative treatment. The Cox proportional hazards model predicted the higher risk for patients with ras mutations but not those with p53 mutations. We conclude that ras and p53 mutations are frequent, apparently independent genetic alterations which play different roles in NSCLC and that this information should be utilized in surgical oncology in the near future.

Inversion of chromosome 16 was found in a 73-year-old female with acute myeloblastic leukemia (FAB:M2). Complete remission was achieved by combined chemotherapy (DNR, Ara-C, 6-MP, Prednisolone), but she relapsed 6 months later without CNS involvement and died of respiratory failure presumably due to cerebrovascular accident during remission reinduction chemotherapy. Biphenotypic surface markers (CD2+ and CD13+) were observed on relapse. Eosinophilia was not observed throughout. Our patient and the other reported case suggest that biphenotypism and the lack of eosinophilia and monocytosis in inv (16) leukemia may be correlated with a poor prognosis.

Flow cytometric nuclear DNA content analysis was performed on 106 bronchoscopically-obtained specimens from 67 patients with primary lung cancer. Brushing, curettage and biopsy samples in which tumor cells were identified by microscopic examination were considered suitable for analysis. The incidence of DNA aneuploidy in small cell carcinoma (77.8%) was higher than that in any other histological type of lung cancer. Intratumoral heterogeneity was found to affect the detectability of DNA aneuploidy, suggesting that care must be taken to obtain adequate samples of tumor cells and to consider intratumoral heterogeneity. These results indicate that this method can be used for nuclear DNA content analysis not only in cases of resectable lung cancer but also for unresectable lung cancers and may provide useful biological information in the clinical management of all types of lung cancer.

A 63-year-old man was admitted because of anemia and thrombocytopenia. The bone marrow was hypercellular with 66.6% erythroblasts with dysplasia and 19.8% blasts. Cytogenetically, MAKA (major karyotypic aberrations) containing 5q-, -7, -17, with karyotypic instability was observed. A diagnosis of erythroleukemia (FAB M6) was made. Six months later, immature neutrophils increased in the peripheral blood, and blasts and promyelocytes increased to 25.8% and 20.0% of marrow cells, respectively. Three months later, blasts asts increased to 33.0% in the peripheral blood. They were ultrastructually positive for platelet peroxidase. Phenotypically, 69% and 63% of blasts were positive for CD41b (GPIIb/IIIa) and CD42a (GPIb), respectively. Bone marrow biopsy showed marked proliferation of blasts and dysplastic megakaryocytes accompanied by reticulin fibrosis. These findings suggested evolution to megakaryoblastic leukemia (FAB M7). In most cases, M6 defined by the FAB criteria is stem cell disorder with multilineage involvement and major erythroid component. M6-like features may be observed in the evolutive phase to acute leukemia from myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).

To investigate the expression of c-H-ras (p21), c-erb B1 (EGFR) and c-erb B2 (p185) gene products in human bladder cancer, immunohistochemical studies using monoclonal antibodies to these proteins were performed on formaline fixed (within 15 hours)-paraffin sections of tumor tissues from 20 patients with bladder cancer, normal appearing adjacent bladder (non-tumor) tissues from 11 of the 20 patients, and normal bladder tissues from 3 patients who died of non-cancerous diseases as control. p21 Positive staining was demonstrated in the superficial cells of urothelium in 1 of 3 controls, also in 5 of 20 tumor tissues compact cells without vacuole in cells which have an increased nuclear/cytoplasmic ratio. Seven of 11 non-tumor tissues indicated positive staining either in superficial layer only or in whole layers of urothelium, and 1 of the latter group reacted with the monoclonal antibody to human bladder cancer produced in our laboratory. EGFR was found in 5 of 20 tumor tissues and 7 of 11 non-tumor tissues, but not in controls. Most EGFR positive tissues also indicated p21 positivity except in 1 of the tumor tissues. p185 Positive staining was demonstrated in 9 of 20 tumor tissues and 5 of 11 non-tumor tissues, but not in the controls. Furthermore, 5 of 6 tumor tissues from the patients with lymph node metastasis indicated p185 positivity. These results suggest that both p21 and EGFR may have a role in transformation and that p185 has a role in the development of metastasis in some urothelial malignancies.

The clinical importance of ras oncogene product p21 was evaluated in surgically treated non-small cell lung cancer patients. Paraffin sections of tumors were analysed immunohistochemically using anti-ras p21 monoclonal antibody rp35. The ras p21 expression was correlated with clinicopathological parameters and survival. Survival analysis demonstrated significantly longer survival times in patients with p21-negative tumors than those with p21-positive tumors. In Cox's multivariate analysis, ras p21 expression was a major and independent prognostic determinant of survival. On the other hand, in small cell lung cancer, L-myc gene is known to be frequently amplified and overexpressed. Immunoprecipitation analysis of two small cell lung cancer cell lines (classic type) revealed three major L-myc proteins (p60, p66 and p68), all of which were derived from extensive phosphorylation of a p59 protein. Expression and phosphorylation of L-myc protein, as well as the autocrine growth mechanism of gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP), is thought to be involved in the malignant behavior of small cell lung cancer.

Expression of the lymphokine genes in human astroglial cell lineage was studied. Primers for 9 different human lymphokines, from IL-1 alpha to IL-8, were used to analyze RNA transcripts in 5 cultured human astrocytoma, one neuroblastoma cell line and 4 fresh brain specimens by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). mRNA transcripts of neither IL-1 nor IL-3, the biological activities of which were observed in rat primary cultured astrocytes, could be detected within these cell lines. Two out of 5 unstimulated astrocytomas, U138 and U373, expressed IL-6 genes. IL-8 gene was detected within U87, U138, U251, U373 glioma cells. After stimulation with IL-1 beta, all astrocytoma and one neuroblastoma cell line expressed IL-6 and IL-8 genes. In addition to the cultured cells, we examined IL-6 and IL-8 gene expression within human malignant astrocytoma specimens. The result shows that three out of four glioma specimens expressed IL-6 and IL-8 genes. From these results, it is suspected that astroglial cell-derived IL-6 or IL-8 may participate in local immune reactions accompanying infection, degeneration and malignancies in the central nervous system.

The patient with quadruple cancer was a 32 year-old female who had osteosarcoma, bilateral breast cancer and adenocarcinoma of the lung. When chromosomal analysis of peripheral blood lymphocyte was performed, two abnormal cells were detected among 42 cells examined. The first cell showed a translocation involving chromosome 1 and 20 and trisomic for chromosome 19. The second cell was trisomic for chromosome x. Southern blot analysis of DNA from peripheral blood lymphocyte revealed that there was no difference in the expression of Rb gene between the patient and healthy adult.

By using monoclonal antibodies against lymphoid and myeloid differentiation antigens, surface marker analysis was performed on the tumor cells from 42 patients with acute leukemia and lymphoblastic lymphoma. Nine (21%) of 42 cases were diagnosed biphenotypic leukemia. Two (17%) of the 12 patients with acute myeloid leukemia, four (18%) of 22 with acute lymphocytic leukemia and three (38%) of 8 with lymphoblastic lymphoma expressed both lymphoid and myeloid antigens. Tumor cells from six patients expressed both T-cell and myeloid antigens, and those from three other expressed both B-cell and myeloid antigens. Southern blot analysis was performed on the DNA from four patients with biphenotypic leukemia cells expressing T-cell and myeloid antigens. DNA from one patient showed clonal rearrangement of the immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) gene, and that from one other showed clonal rearrangement of both IgH gene and T-cell receptor beta-chain gene. DNA from two other patients showed a germline configuration of both genes. These results indicate that biphenotypic leukemia, especially T-cell and myeloid phenotype, is not so rare in acute leukemia and lymphoblastic lymphoma. The results of immunogenotypic analysis were not consistent with those of immunophenotypic analysis in biphenotypic leukemia.