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Complete Sequencing and Messenger Ribonucleic Acid Expression Analysis of the MEN I Gene in Adrenal Cancer¹

Klinik für Allgemeine Chirurgie und Unfallchirurgie (K.-M.S., M.M., M.H., D.S., H.-D.R.) and Biologisch-Medizinisches Forschungszentrum (S.S., K.K.), Heinrich-Heine-University, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany

Address correspondence and requests for reprints to: Dr. med. Klaus-Martin Schulte, Klinik für Allgemeine Chirurgie und Unfallchirurgie, Medizinische Einrichtungen, Heinrich-Heine-University, Moorenstr. 5, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany. E-mail: schultekm{at}med.uniduesseldorf.de

Adrenal cancer is a rare sporadic disease that has also been observed in the context of multiple endocrine neoplasia type I (MEN I). Adrenal lesions occur in up to 40% of MEN I patients. Loss of heterozygosity of the 11q13 band harboring the menin gene has been reported in more than 50% of patients with adrenal cancer. Despite this high index of suspicion, former screening studies did not reveal mutations of the MEN I gene in 28 patients. We identified loss of heterozygosity of 11q13 microsatellites in five of five patients (100%). In 40%, heterozygosity was retained in codon 418 of the MEN I gene.

Complete direct DNA sequencing data of the entire coding region and adjacent splice sites of the MEN I gene were obtained in 14 patients with sporadic adrenal cancer. In only one of them a heterozygous missense mutation, R176Q (exon 3), was identified. Due to the heterozygous pattern and unknown biological effect of this mutation, it is not clear whether there is a causal relationship with adrenal cancer. The total mutation frequency in sporadic adrenal cancer is 1 of14 (7%). Menin messenger RNA expression was identified in 14 of 14 patients (100%). Transcriptional inactivation of the menin gene is, hence, unlikely to cause loss of its tumor suppressor function in adrenal cancer.

Furthermore, we examined three patients who presented adrenal cancer in the context of sporadic multiglandular endocrine tumor disease previously diagnosed on clinical grounds to be MEN I syndrome. An opal stop codon mutation was identified in codon 126 (exon 2) in the adrenal cancer of one of these patients. Formation of the adrenal cancer in this patient may be rather coincidental because the mutation was present in a heterozygous pattern. There was no mutation of the menin gene in the two other patients. This may mean that formation of adrenal cancer in the context of multiglandular endocrine disease denotes an entity different from MEN I in some patients.

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