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Query: UNIPROT:P00492 (hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase)
 2,385 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Molecular analysis of mutations at the hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT) locus in peripheral blood T-lymphocytes can provide information on mechanisms of somatic in vivo mutation in populations exposed to exogenous carcinogens and in individuals with inherent susceptibility to cancer and other diseases. To study possible mutational changes associated with smoking as a risk factor for lung cancer, we analyzed HPRT mutations in T-cells of newly diagnosed, nonsmoking and smoking lung cancer patients before treatment. Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and DNA sequencing methods were used to identify 146 independent mutations, 73 each from 32 nonsmoking and 31 smoking cases. In 35 T-cell mutants, the HPRT cDNA showed loss of an entire exon, indicating a splicing mutation. Among the remaining 111 fully characterized mutations in the coding region, single base pair (bp) substitutions predominated with 79% (48/61) in nonsmokers and 90% (45/50) in smokers. Frameshift and small deletion (1-24 bp) mutations were found in 18 mutants. The distribution of base pair substitutions was nonrandom, with significant clustering at previously identified hotspot positions 143, 197 and 617 in the HPRT coding sequence (P< or =0.008). One additional hotspot, GC-->TA at position 606, was observed only in smokers (P=0.006). The frequency of GC>TA transversions was higher in smokers (13%) than in nonsmokers (6%). Conversely, smokers had a lower frequency of GC>AT transitions (24%) than nonsmokers (35%). This smoking-associated shift of the HPRT mutational spectrum, although not statistically significant, is consistent with the in vitro mutagenicity of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), a prominent carcinogen of tobacco smoke, and with known differences in the TP53 mutational spectrum in lung tumors of smokers and nonsmokers. Among nonsmokers, the HPRT mutational spectra in healthy population controls and lung cancer patients were similar, but there was a marginally significant difference (P=0.07) in the distribution of base pair substitutions between smoking controls and patients. These results suggest that (i) general mechanisms of somatic mutagenesis in individuals with possible predisposition to cancer (e.g. nonsmoking lung cancer patients) are not different from those in normal healthy individuals, and (ii) the HPRT gene in T-cells is a useful reporter locus for smoking-associated somatic in vivo mutations occurring early in lung cancer development.
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PMID:Mutational spectra at the hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT) locus in T-lymphocytes of nonsmoking and smoking lung cancer patients. 1086 57

Gene expression changes are used with increasing frequency to assess the effects of exposure to environmental agents. Housekeeping (Hk) genes are essential in these analyses as internal controls for normalizing expression levels evaluated with Real-Time PCR (RT-PCR). Ideal Hk genes are constitutively expressed, do not respond to external stimuli and exhibit little or no sample-to-sample or run-to-run variation. Previous studies indicate that some commonly used Hk genes including glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and beta-actin have differential expression in various cell lines. Here we examine the expression of 11 Hk genes in four normal human lymphoblastoid cell lines and one T-cell leukemia (Jurkat) cell line following exposure to graded doses of ionizing radiation or to varying ratio concentrations of phytohemagglutinin (PHA) and phorbol myristate acetate (PMA). PHA and PMA are known to have synergistic effects on the expression of some genes and have very different effects from those of radiation. There has been no systematic study performed to ascertain the best control genes for radiation and/or PHA/PMA exposures in lymphoblastoid cells. Using a two-step reverse-transcriptase RT-PCR protocol we show that following radiation doses ranging from 0 to 400 cGy, 18S rRNA, acidic ribosomal protein, beta-actin, cyclophilin, GAPDH, phosphoglycerokinase, beta-2 microglobulin (B2M), beta-glucuronidase, hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase and transferrin receptor showed no significant variation in expression in normal lymphoblastoid cells. In contrast, only 18S rRNA levels were unchanged in Jurkat cells. After PHA/PMA treatment of the same normal cell lines, B2M showed no significant variation and 18S rRNA, GAPDH and transcription binding protein (TBP) were minimally responsive, whereas in Jurkat cells all these genes were unresponsive. While our results suggest that the utility of a particular Hk gene should be determined for each experimental condition, 18S rRNA and B2M appear to be excellent candidates for use as internal controls in RT-PCR in human lymphoblastoid cells because they have the most constant levels of expression across cell lines following exposure to ionizing radiation as well as to PHA/PMA.
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PMID:Evaluation and validation of housekeeping genes in response to ionizing radiation and chemical exposure for normalizing RNA expression in real-time PCR. 1790 13