Expression of the amplified domain in human neuroblastoma cells

Screening of a partial cDNA library prepared from the human neuroblastoma cell line BE(2)-C with genomic DNA probes containing sequences representative of the amplified domain of that cell line allowed us to identify cloned transcripts from an active gene within the domain. The gene BE(2)-C-59 is amplified ca. 150-fold and encodes a 3.0- and a 1.5-kilobase RNA transcript, both of which are overproduced in BE(2)-C cells. A survey of a large variety of human tumor cell types indicated that this gene is amplified to varying degrees in all neuroblastoma cell lines and a retinoblastoma cell line that exhibit obvious cytological manifestations of DNA sequence amplification, i.e., homogeneously staining regions and double-minute chromosomes. The BE(2)-C-59 gene is not amplified, however, in other nonrelated tumor types, even those containing amplified DNA. Although the functional significance of this specific gene amplification in neuroblastoma cells remains unknown, an indication that it may relate to the malignant phenotype of these cells follows from the remainder of our data which show that the amplified BE(2)-C-59 gene shares partial homology with both the second and third exons, but not the first exon, of the human c-myc oncogene.