Mutational Analysis of Pro-apoptotic BAD Gene in Nonsmall Cell Lung Cancer

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE : Evidence exists that deregulation of apoptosis is involved in the mechanisms of cancer development, and the somatic mutations of apoptosisrelated genes have been reported in human cancers. Bcl- XL/Bcl-2-associated death promoter (BAD), a pro-apoptotic member of Bcl-2 family, plays an important role in the intrinsic apoptosis pathway. MATERIALS AND METHODS : To explore the possibility that the genetic alterations of BAD might be involved in the development of human cancers, we analyzed the entire coding region and all splice sites of human BAD gene in 100 human non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP). RESULTS : The PCR-SSCP analysis detected no mutation in the entire coding regions and all splice sites of human BAD gene in the 100 NSCLCs. CONCLUSION : The data presented here suggested that BAD gene mutation may not contribute to the pathogenesis of human NSCLCs