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Molecular Oncology, Markers, Clinical Correlates |
Departments of Thoracic Surgery [S. S., S. H., M. Sh., M. Su., T. M.], Pathology and Clinical Laboratories [Y. Y., T. K.], and Internal Medicine [M. O.], Aichi Cancer Center Hospital, Nagoya 464-8681; Department of Epidemiology [N. H.] and Division of Molecular Oncology [N. H., T. T.], Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, Aichi Cancer Center, Nagoya 464-8681; Department of Internal Medicine II, Nagoya City University Medical School, Nagoya 467-8601 [S. S., R. U.], Japan
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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Synchronous multiple cancers can be regarded as potentially curable. On
the other hand, with intrapulmonary metastases the prognosis is usually
poor. Therefore, distinction between the two might be of therapeutic
and prognostic importance. In conventional clinicopathological
analyses, the incidence of multicentric tumors of the lung is reported
to be
1% (4, 5, 6, 7)
, but lack of definite criteria
prevents estimation of an accurate value.
Martini and Melamed (8) in 1975 proposed the criteria that are currently most widely used. Essentially, a diagnosis of multiple primary cancers is made when the histological characteristics are different. Even when the histological features are the same, the second tumor is diagnosed as multicentric tumor, if it is in a different segment, lobe, or lung, or if the other tumor is a carcinoma in situ, or if there is no obviously related carcinoma in the lymphatics common and extrapulmonary metastasis is lacking at time of diagnosis. However, these criteria are rather empirical, and no theoretically sound background has been established.
Recent advances in molecular biology have provided several markers that can be used for clonal analysis. These include X chromosome inactivation analysis in female patients, immunoglobulin or T-cell receptor gene analysis for lymphoid tumors, and the occurrence of somatic mutations of oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes (9) . Analysis of mutations occurring in the p53 tumor suppressor gene is particularly useful for lung cancer. Because they are the most frequently observed genetic alteration (10) . It is not likely that two independent tumors would have the same p53 mutation by chance alone, because they are widely distributed, involving various codons in exons 58 (11 , 12) . Another advantage is that mutations of the p53 gene occur relatively early in the development of lung cancer, especially in those of squamous cell type (13) . Because they have a role in maintenance of the malignant phenotype (14) , once acquired they are well preserved during progression or metastatic spread (15) . In our previous clonal analysis of metachronous multiple lung tumors, genetic diagnosis could be made for 9 of 16 patients, but p53 gene analysis was not informative in the remaining 7 (16) .
In this study, we examined 14 patients with synchronous multiple lung tumors for their clonal origin by examining p53 gene mutations and in addition, evaluated LOH3 occurring on chromosomal arms 3p, 9p, and 18q. Leong et al. (17) showed recently that examination of loss of loci on particular chromosome arms is useful for distinction of second primary tumors from lung metastases in patients with head and neck cancer.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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PCR-SSCP Analysis of the p53 Gene.
Mutations of the p53 gene occurring in exons 58 were
screened by PCR-SSCP analysis essentially as described earlier
(16)
with a modification to eliminate nesting-PCR
strategy, because we found that this introduces significant artificial
mutations. Briefly, 1-µl aliquots of DNA solution were amplified with
a pair of primers in a volume of 10 µl including 0.5 µl of
[
-32P]dCTP (3000 Ci/mmol, 10 mCi/ml;
Amersham, Arlington Heights, IL) with AmpliTaq Gold (Perkin-Elmer,
Branchburg, NJ). The PCR products were diluted with loading buffer
1:10, heat degenerated, loaded onto nondenaturing 6% polyacrylamide
gels, and subjected to electrophoresis at 25 W for 4 h in a cold
room (4°C) or at 30 W for 5 h at room temperature. After
electrophoresis, the gels were subjected to autoradiography. We
repeated at least three experiments to confirm the mutations, because
mutation artifacts are relatively common in formalin-fixed materials
(19)
. One case was thereby excluded from the present
analysis because of inconsistent results.
Microsatellite Analysis.
To determine the presence of loss of heterozygosity occurring at 3p,
9p, and 18q, microsatellite analysis was performed using seven
microsatellite markers [D3S4103 (3p14.2), D3S966
(3p21), D3S1478 (3p2), D3S1537 (3p25),
D3S1351 (3p25), INFA (9p21), and
D18S46 (18q21)]. One-µl aliquots of solution were
amplified with a pair of primers in a volume of 10 µl including 0.5
µl of [
-32P]dCTP (3000 Ci/mmol, 10
mCi/ml) with AmpliTaq Gold. The PCR products were diluted with loading
buffer, heat degenerated, loaded onto denaturing 8% polyacrylamide
gels, and subjected to electrophoresis at 50 W for 3 h at room
temperature. After electrophoresis, the gels were dried and used to
expose X-ray films at room temperature for 24 h. At least
triplicate experiments were performed to exclude PCR artifacts in LOH
analysis. Three cases were excluded because results were not
reproducible.
DNA Sequencing.
Samples showing variant p53 patterns upon PCR-SSCP analysis were
selected for DNA sequencing. The amplified bands were then cut out of
the gel of PCR-SSCP analysis. The gels were suspended in 50 µl of
distilled water and heated at 75°C for 15 min. One-µl aliquots of
solution were amplified with a pair of primers in a volume of 50 µl
with AmpliTaq. PCR products were purified with QIAquick PCR
purification kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany). They were sequenced by
AmpliCycle Sequencing kit (Perkin-Elmer, Alameda, CA).
| RESULTS |
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Detection of p53 Gene Mutations.
Eleven p53 gene mutations were detected in 11 tumors (35%)
occurring in 6 patients (Figs. 1
and 2
; Table 2
). Four cases (cases 3, 5, 9, and 14)
had identical SSCP gel patterns in their pairs of tumors, whereas in 2
cases (cases 2 and 11), only one of the two tumors showed an abnormal
bandshift in the SSCP gel. Four cases (cases 3, 5, 9, and 14) had
identical p53 abnormalities upon DNA sequencing. With 8 patients,
neither of the tumors harbored a p53 mutation.
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Interpretation of the Results and Molecular Diagnosis of Clonality
(Figs. 2
and 3)
.
In patients with tumors harboring the same p53 mutation (cases 3, 5, 9,
and 14), the diagnosis made was intrapulmonary metastases, because the
possibility of those occurring in two independent tumors by chance
alone is extremely unlikely.
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In three cases (cases 5, 9, and 10), the LOH patterns apparently
conflicted with the results of p53 analysis (Fig. 2
b).
Cases 5 and 9 showed different LOH patterns but had the same p53
mutation. On the basis that LOH patterns were almost identical with the
exception of 1 or 2 loci, they were diagnosed as intrapulmonary
metastases. In the other case (case 10), the same LOH pattern (ClnI,
0.02) was found, but only one tumor had a p53 mutation. It is
conceivable that this case is intrapulmonary metastasis because the
ClnI was low, and it is possible to acquire p53 mutations late in
neoplastic development; but this case presented difficulty in
diagnosis.
Case 2 showed different LOH and p53 PCR-SSCP patterns and was therefore diagnosed as suffering from multicentric lung cancers. Case 12 showed different LOH patterns but was not informative for p53 analysis. Only one tumor showed LOH of 3p25, but both tumors showed the same pattern in other loci. Because the ClnI except for 3p25 was low at 0.01, we assumed that metastatic cells originating from a parental clone had later acquired 3p25, but this case presented difficulty in diagnosis.
Fig. 3
summarizes results of our molecular diagnoses. We were able to
evaluate clonal origin of multiple lung tumors in 12 of 14 cases (86%)
examined. Two of 14 cases (14%) presented difficulty in diagnosis.
Eleven of 12 cases were diagnosed as having pulmonary metastasis,
whereas only one case was considered to have genuinely multiple
cancers.
| DISCUSSION |
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The finding that nearly all patients had tumors diagnosed as intrapulmonary metastatic cancers was somewhat unexpected and contrary to the "field cancerization" concept (3) that multiple cells independently undergo neoplastic transformation with a similar genetic and environmental background, resulting in clonally distinct tumors. However, Leong et al. (17) reported that, on examining head and neck squamous cell carcinomas and solitary lung nodules for 3p and 9p LOH, most (12 of 16 cases) were metastases and that independent transforming events were uncommon, in line with our observations.
Although there have been several reports of molecular approaches to clonal distinction of metachronous multiple lung tumors, those on synchronous lesions are relatively few. Matsuzoe et al. (26) reported that multicentric lung cancers were more frequent than intrapulmonary metastases after analyzing synchronous multiple lung cancers for p53 mutations. Of seven informative cases in 20, four had mutations in only one of the two tumors, two patients had different p53 mutations, and one had identical p53 mutations. They thus concluded that the first and second cases could be classified as multicentric lung cancers, and that the multicentric cancers were more frequent than the intrapulmonary metastatic cancers in synchronous multiple cancers. This is in contrast with our results and the results of Leong et al. (17) . However, Matsuzoe et al. (26) performed only p53 analysis, and the low rate of informative cases might be misleading for estimation of the real incidence. Four patients with mutations in only one of their two tumors might have had intrapulmonary metastases like our patient 10. Again, we would like to emphasize the importance of combining p53 and LOH analysis for higher specificity and sensitivity as well as repeated confirmation of reproducibility of the results.
Mutations of the p53 gene or loss of chromosomal arms are in
general believed to occur early in the pathogenesis of lung cancers.
For example, Reichel et al. (15)
reported that
the p53 mutational status was concordant in the primary tumor and its
corresponding multiple metastases in 94% of cases in 9 patients on
examining a total of 26 primary lung tumors and 60 metastases. In
several cases, the p53 pattern conflicted with the LOH pattern in the
present series, and we were forced to interpret some genetic lesions
(LOH at 3p25, 3p21, 18q21, or p53 mutation) as occurring later
separately after establishment of pulmonary metastases. Case 10 showed
p53 mutation in only one tumor but the same LOH pattern (see Fig. 2
).
This case presented difficulty in diagnosis. Because the ClnI was 0.02,
the second tumor was more likely to be a subclone originating from the
same parental clone that acquired metastatic potential with p53
mutations than an independent multicentric tumor. In cases 5 and 9, the
situation was opposite, i.e., the same p53 pattern but
different LOH. However, we also have diagnosed intrapulmonary
metastases based on the fact that it is extremely rare to have the same
p53 mutations by chance alone. Therefore, if we had not combined p53
analysis with LOH analysis, we might have reached the wrong conclusion.
It is important to bear in mind that there is a danger of misdiagnosis
by making distinctions by a single method.
In conclusion, we have shown that molecular biological methods are useful to distinguish between multicentric lung cancers and intrapulmonary metastasis for patients with synchronous multiple tumors. In most cases, tumors were diagnosed as being clonally related, indicating one tumor to be a pulmonary metastasis from the other. Molecular diagnosis was concordant with Martini and Melamed (8) criteria in 10 of 12 (83%) cases. This high concordance does not detract from the utility of our molecular approach. Because materials obtained by transbronchial lung biopsy or transthoracic needle biopsy have been shown to allow molecular analysis (27 , 28) , information on clonal origin is available at the time of treatment planning. Precise determination of the clonal origin of multiple lung tumors might help rationalize treatment strategy and hopefully might improve prognosis of the affected patients.
| FOOTNOTES |
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1 Supported in part by the Aichi Cancer Research
Foundation; the Bristol-Meyers Squibb Biomedical Research Grant
Program; Grant-in-Aid 09671403 from the Ministry of Education, Science,
Sports and Culture of Japan; and the Mitsui Life Social Welfare
Foundation. ![]()
2 To whom requests for reprints should be
addressed, at Department of Thoracic Surgery, Aichi Cancer Center
Hospital, 1-1 Kanokoden, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464, Japan. Phone:
81-52-762-6111; Fax: 81-52-764-2963; E-mail: mitsudom{at}leo.bekkoame.ne.jp ![]()
3 The abbreviations used are: LOH, loss of
heterozygosity; SSCP, single strand conformation polymorphism;
ClnI, clonality index. ![]()
Received 2/28/00; revised 6/26/00; accepted 7/ 5/00.
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