An oncogenic chromosome 8-9 gene fusion isolated following transfection of human ovarian carcinoma cell line DNA.

Transfection of NIH3T3 cells with genomic DNA from the human ovarian adenocarcinoma tumor cell line OVCAR-3 identified ovc, a rearranged human DNA sequence which was generated during transfection and which induced both morphological transformation and tumorigenesis. A human alu repeat positive 10.5 kb EcoRI fragment present in all transformants was cloned, and two alu-free fragments of 1.8 kb and 2.2 kb were subcloned. The cloned 10.5 kb fragment is not biologically active in DNA transfection assays. Probe from the 2.2 kb fragment hybridizes to poly A + RNA from the transformants and several human tumor cell lines, including OVCAR-3. The 2.2 kb fragment maps to a site on human chromosome 9 (9p24) not known to contain oncogenic sequences, and identifies a two allele polymorphic restriction site. The 1.8 kb fragment maps to human chromosome 8. The ovc transforming sequences fail to hybridize to probes to any of 14 known oncogenes, indicating that they may represent a previously unknown human transforming gene.