K-ras point mutations in spontaneously occurring endometrial adenocarcinomas in the Donryu rat

The Donryu rat has been found to have a high incidence of spontaneous uterine endometrial carcinomas. Moreover the histologic findings, biological nature and pathogenesis of these rat tumors appear similar to those in humans. To determine if the incidence of H- and K-ras gene mutations in these rat tumors is similar to that in human endometrial cancers, we isolated DNA samples from 2 atypical hyperplasias, 5 simple or complex hyperplasia without atypia, 9 adenocarcinomas and 7 histologically normal tissues, amplified exons 1 and 2 of the H- and K-ras genes by PCR and hybridized the products with allele specific oligonucleotide probes. K-ras point mutations were observed in 1/2 of the atypical hyperplasia (codon 12: GGT-->GTT) and 3/9 of the carcinoma (codon 12: GGT-->GAT, GGT-->AGT, codon 61: CAA-->CAC), while they were not detected in 7 of the normal tissues and in 5 of the simple or complex hyperplasia without atypia. H-ras point mutations were not detected in any of these DNA samples. These frequencies in this rat model are similar to those in humans. The absence of K-ras mutations from simple and complex hyperplasia tissue samples suggests that these mutations are associated with cytological atypia. Our findings suggest that alterations in the K-ras gene may be one of the important initiating event in endometrial carcinogenesis in some of the Donryu rat, like the human.