Mutational analysis of MYC in common epithelial cancers and acute leukemias.

In addition to chromosomal translocation, the MYC gene in the N-terminal coding region showed clustered point mutations in Burkitt's lymphomas. A recent study showed that these point mutations inactivated the apoptosis activity of MYC and contributed to the tumor transformation. To see whether the point mutations of MYC are involved in tumors besides Burkitt's lymphomas, we analyzed the N-terminal cluster region of the mutations in 507 cancers from gastric, colorectal, breast and lung carcinomas, and acute leukemias, by polymerase chain reaction-based single-strand conformation polymorphism assay. However, there was no somatic mutation of the MYC gene in the cancers. The data suggest that the point mutation of the MYC gene in the N-terminal domain may be very rare and may not contribute to the development of common human cancers besides Burkitt's lymphomas.