Searching for microsatellite mutations in coding regions in lung, breast, ovarian and colorectal cancers

Abstract
RepX represents a new informatics approach to probe the UniGene database for potentially polymorphic repeat sequences in the open reading frame (ORF) of genes, 56% of which were found to be actually polymorphic. We now have performed mutational analysis of 17 such sites in genes not found to be polymorphic (SREBP-2, TAN-1, GR6) (P<0.000003 compared to all other cancers tested). We conclude that coding region microsatellite alterations are rare in lung, breast, ovarian carcinomas and MSI (−) colorectal cancers, but are relatively frequent in MSI (+) colorectal cancers with mismatch repair deficits.