Absence of mutations in the transforming growth factor-beta type II receptor in sporadic lung cancers with microsatellite instability and rare H-ras1 alleles.

The transforming growth factor-beta type II receptor (RII) is commonly mutated in colon and gastric cancers with microsatellite instability (MI). We utilized our series of lung cancers with MI and rare alleles of the H-ras1 gene to determine the association between MI and RII mutations and searched the entire RII coding region in 33 lung cancers with MI by polymerase chain reaction-single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis. We found no mutations, and these data support other recent evidence that RII mutations rarely occur except in colon and gastric tumors with MI.