Codon 12 Harvey-ras mutations are rare events in non-melanoma human skin cancer

ras mutations have been reported as an early event in some human malignancies and in the mouse skin model of multistep carcinogenesis; early studies in human non-melanoma skin cancers have reported variable rates of ras mutations. A recent study, however, has reported a high frequency of activating mutations of the Harvey-ras proto-oncogene in non-melanoma skin cancers, and the site specificity of the mutation at the second position of codon 12 prompted us to re-examine the importance of Ha-ras codon 12 mutations as an early event in the development of these tumours, using a combination of PCR and restriction fragment polymorphism of codon 12 of the Ha-ras gene. Dilution experiments confirmed that the method was sensitive and capable of detecting mutations at this codon when only 4% of the total alleles are mutated. We were surprised to find no mutations in the 40 basal cell carcinomas, 12 squamous cell carcinomas and 12 cases of Bowen's disease studied. We conclude that Ha-ras codon 12 mutations are rare events in human non-melanoma skin cancer in the U.K. The marked differences in the frequency of codon 12 Ha-ras mutations in published studies may relate to either technical artefacts, or differences in the molecular epidemiology between areas of low and high sun exposure.