Mutational analysis of CDKN2 (CDK4I/MTS1) gene in tissues and cell lines of human prostate cancer.

To study mutation of the CDKN2 gene in prostate cancer, samples from 51 Japanese patients and four human prostate cancer cell lines were examined by single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis and direct sequencing. Only one out of 51 (2%) patients revealed a mutation, which was a 24 bp deletion from the 5'-untranslated region to codon 3, resulting in loss of the initiation site. One of the four cell lines revealed a missense mutation, a GAC-->TAC (Asp-->Tyr) at codon 84. These results indicate that mutation of the CDKN2 gene is rare in prostate cancer and thus does not contribute significantly to the pathogenesis of human prostate cancer. Prostate cancer cell lines may acquire more frequent abnormality of the CDKN2 gene than tumor tissues.