Our results indicate that as well as being an additional diagnostic tool, altered AMACR expression in gastric adenomas and intestinal-type carcinomas suggests that AMACR may be involved early in the development of intestinal-type gastric carcinomas.
There was very low or no expression of AMACR protein in normal colon, but AMACR was highly expressed in 76 and 75% of well and moderately differentiated colon carcinomas, respectively, and in 79% of adenomas.
RNase protection, rapid amplification of 5'-cDNA ends (5'-RACE), and reverse transcription-PCR analyses of five adenomas with a normal karyotype revealed fusion transcripts in three tumors.
3'-RACE analysis of a primary adenoma with an apparently normal karyotype revealed an HMGIC fusion transcript containing ectopic sequences derived from the human NFIB gene, previously mapped to chromosome band 9p24.1.