Mutations in ribonuclease L gene do not occur at a greater frequency in patients with familial prostate cancer compared with patients with sporadic prostate cancer.

Several genetic loci are suspected to be involved in hereditary prostate cancer, including the hereditary prostate cancer 1 (HPC1) locus at chromosome 1q24-25. The ribonuclease L (RNase L) gene has been reported as the putative hereditary prostate cancer gene located at HPC1. If this is the case, mutations of RNase L should be found at a greater frequency in familial cancers than in sporadic prostate cancers. Examination of familial and sporadic cases of prostate cancer by polymerase chain reaction and DNA sequencing resulted in a mutational frequency rate that was not statistically different between the 2 forms of the disease. These results suggest that the mutations examined within this study are rare and may contribute to very few familial prostate cancers.