Renal carcinogenesis in the Eker rat.

The Eker rat hereditary renal carcinoma is an excellent example of a Mendelian dominant predisposition to a specific cancer in an experimental animal. We recently reported that a germline insertion in the rat homologue of the human tuberous sclerosis (TSC2) gene gives rise to the dominantly inherited cancer in the Eker rat model. The function of theTSC2/Tsc2 gene product (called “tuberine” in the human case) is not yet understood, although it contains a short amino acid sequence homologous to theras family GTPase-activating proteins (GAP3). In the study, we isolated subtracted cDNA clones having increased expression in eker renal carcinoma cells, using a modified representational difference analysis method to search for additional genes specifically involved in renal carcinogenesis. Here we identified four genes: the third component of the complement (C3) gene, thefos-related antigen 1 (fra-1) gene, an unknown gene (designated as beingexpressed inrenalcarcinoma:erc) and the calpactine I heavy-chain (Annexin II) gene.