High frequency occurrence of 1-OPRD variant of PRNP gene in gastric cancer cell lines and Chinese population with gastric cancer.

The prion protein gene PRNP encodes PrPc and PrPsc, causing a number of neurological disorders. Approximately 10-15% of human prion disease is inherited and more than 20 pathogenic mutations have been found. Most of the genetic alterations are point mutations, with the exception of genetic insertions of one to nine extra octapeptide repeats occurring in the important octapeptide-coding region. Our previous work showed that PrPc was overexpressed in gastric cancer. We wondered whether mutations of PrPc existed in human gastric cancer. DNA sequencing and gel electrophoresis were used to determine the possible mutation of PrPc in patients and cell lines of gastric cancer. We found that 1-OPRD (one octapeptide-repeat deletion) homozygosity or heterozygosity exists in several gastric cancer cell lines, e.g. MKN28 and KatoIII are homozygous for 1-OPRD, and SGC7901 and BGC-823 are heterozygous for 1-OPRD. The mutation frequency in tissues of gastric cancer cases is significantly higher than that in the common population (p<0.05). All positive cases in gastric cancer were found to be heterozygous for 1-OPRD. Further study of the variant may be helpful in understanding the mechanisms of occurrence and development of clinical gastric carcinoma as well as the biology of the mysterious gene PRNP.