Amplification of oncogenes in lung carcinoma grafted in nude mice.

Seven lung carcinomas were grafted on nude mice and continuously propagated as in vivo models on which the amplification of 9 oncogenes (N-myc, v-erb A, v-abl, v-sis, c-myc, c-myb, v-Ha-ras, c-Kiras, and v-scr) was studied by Southern blot hybridization. Only c-myc was amplified (20 copies) in an adenocarcinoma. The presence of 2 bands at 9 kb and 6.6 kb in addition to the normal 12.7 kb in EcoR1 digested DNAs suggested a polymorphism of the c-myc gene in this tumor. The other 8 oncogenes were not amplified in this tumor. The 5 small cell lung carcinomas of this study did not show any amplification of any of the 9 oncogenes tested.