Expression and rearrangement of the ROS1 gene in human glioblastoma cells.

The human ROS1 gene, which possibly encodes a growth factor receptor, was found to be expressed in human tumor cell lines. In a survey of 45 different human cell lines, we found ROS1 to be expressed in glioblastoma-derived cell lines at high levels and not to be expressed at all, or expressed at very low levels, in the remaining cell lines. The ROS1 gene was present in normal copy numbers in all cell lines that expressed the gene. However, in one particular glioblastoma line, we detected a potentially activating mutation at the ROS1 locus.