Journal of Lung Cancer  2005;4(1):38-41

Mutational Analysis of Caspase-7 and 8 Genes in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer.

Young Hwa SOUNG 1 ; Jong Woo LEE ; Seok Whan MOON ; Keon Hyon JO ; Young Pil WANG ; Su Young KIM ; Suk Woo NAM ; Won Sang PARK ; Jung Young LEE ; Nam Jin YOO ; Sug Hyung LEE

Affiliations

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Keywords

Non-small cell lung cancer; Caspase-7; Caspase-8; Apoptosis; Mutation

Country

Republic of Korea

Language

Korean

Abstract

PURPOSE : Several lines of evidence have indicated that deregulation of apoptosis is involved in the mechanism of cancer development. Caspase-8 activation plays a central role in the initiation phase of apoptosis, while caspase-7 is one of the main execution phase caspases of apoptosis. The aim of this study was to explore the possibility that genetic alterations of the caspase-8 and caspase-7 genes are involved in the development of human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). MATERIALS AND METHODS : We have analyzed the entire coding region of both the caspase-7 and caspase-8 genes to detect the somatic mutations in 100 NSCLCs by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)- single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP). RESULTS : The PCR-SSCP analysis detected no mutations in the entire coding regions of both the caspase-7 and caspase-8 genes in the NSCLCs. CONCLUSION : The data presented here suggests that both the caspase-7 and caspase-8 genes may not be somatically mutated in human NSCLCs