DNA amplification in human gastric carcinomas.

We recently identified a genomic domain at chromosome 10q26 that is highly amplified in the gastric carcinoma cell lines KATO III and SNU-16 and contains the BEK/K-sam gene, which encodes several growth factor receptors. A contiguous segment of 200 kb spanning this gene was amplified in five of 139 (3.6%) primary gastric carcinomas, all of them classified as poorly differentiated tumors. There was no amplification of this genomic region in a variety of other solid tumors. The overall frequency of gene amplification among the gastric carcinomas rose to 19.4% when MYC, ERBB2, and INT2 were included in the analysis, with significant association with advanced tumor stage. Amplification of various genomic regions in solid tumors may be more frequent than previously estimated.