Determination of the allelic frequencies of an L-myc and a p53 polymorphism in human lung cancer

The L-myc and p53 genes have been implicated in lung cancer.Both of these genes have restriction fragment length polymorphisms(RFLPs) that could account for differential expression or activityof variant forms. An EcoRI restriction site in the L-myc genewas previously reported to be a predictor of poor prognosisin Japanese lung cancer patients. There are several RFLPs inthe p53 gene. In exon 4 there is a polymorphism that codes foreither an arginine or proline residue at codon 72. We previouslyreported the frequency of DNA-RFLPs at these gene loci revealedby EcoRI and AccII respectively. Here we report results froma study comparing lung cancer cases (n = 31) with chronic obstructivepulmonary disease controls (n = 49). No association was foundbetween these RFLPs and disease status. Previous observationsthat the frequencies of these RFLPs varied by race were confirmed.The p53 arginine allele was found to be more common in Caucasians(0.71) than African Americans (0.50). The EcoRI restrictionsite present allele in L-myc was more frequent in African-Americans(0.71) than Caucasians (0.49). Thus, the allelic frequency forL-myc was similar in African Americans to that reported forJapanese, and the allelic frequency for p53 was similar in Caucasiansto that reported for Japanese.