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Biomedical subjects

C A Midgley

Publications and source records attributed to C A Midgley.

24 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

An immunochemical analysis of the human nuclear phosphoprotein p53. New monoclonal antibodies and epitope mapping using recombinant p53.

Somatic mutation of the p53 gene is a very frequent event in the development of human neoplasia, and germ line mutations in p53 are responsible for an inherited cancer susceptibility syndrome. Many of the mutations in p53 found in human tumours are point mutations that result in the substitution of a single amino acid in the protein. These point mutant proteins are much more stable than the normal protein and the mutant product accumulates to a high level which permits important information about p53 expression to be obtained by immunochemical analysis. Using bacterial expression systems to produce fragments of human p53 we have isolated and characterized new monoclonal antibodies to p53. These antibodies are suitable for the measurement of p53 in ELISA, immunoblotting and immunoprecipitation analyses. They are especially useful in immunohistochemistry as they are able to react strongly with p53 in conventionally fixed and processed histological sections.

Antibodies, Monoclonal↗

Analysis of p53 expression in human tumours: an antibody raised against human p53 expressed in Escherichia coli.

A cDNA encoding the complete normal human p53 protein was expressed in Escherichia coli using an expression system based on the bacteriophage T7 promoter. The cDNA was adapted so that the full-length protein was produced without fusion to any other sequence. Large amounts of the protein were isolated and the purified protein used to produce very high titre polyclonal antibodies to p53. These new antibodies permit the sensitive detection of p53 and p53 complexes in ELISA and immunoblotting assays. Most importantly, they also permit the detection of p53 in archival tumour material that has been conventionally fixed in formalin and embedded in paraffin wax. Using this reagent we have found that aberrant expression of p53 is a frequent feature of human breast cancer. We are able to recognise six different classes of p53 expression pattern that may be of help in the subclassification of breast tumours.

Antibodies↗

p53 protein alterations in human testicular cancer including pre-invasive intratubular germ-cell neoplasia.

Expression of the p53 oncoprotein was examined in a wide range of primary human testicular germ-cell tumours using a new mouse monoclonal antibody (MAb) BP53-11 raised and characterized in this study, in parallel with a polyclonal rabbit antiserum CM-1. Immunohistochemistry on paraffin sections showed positive nuclear reaction in at least a fraction of malignant cells in 90 (84%) out of 107 cases studied. Aberrant accumulation of the p53 protein was found among testicular tumours of all major histological types, although generally a higher percentage of positive cases and a higher proportion of p53 over-expressing nuclei within individual lesions was observed in embryonal carcinomas when compared with seminomas. The typical heterogeneous staining pattern characteristic of histological specimens was also found in a cultured cell line derived from a human embryonal carcinoma. In contrast to immunohistochemically undetectable levels in normal testes and morphologically normal tissue areas in the tumour-bearing testes, the accumulation of the p53 protein was clearly identified in a high proportion (59% of cases) of the pre-invasive lesions with positive atypical intratubular germ cells often found in the tissue adjacent to invasive tumours. Altered expression of the p53 protein is therefore a unifying feature of the majority of invasive male germ-cell tumours and the change resulting in high levels of p53 appears to be a relatively early step in the human testicular cancer pathogenesis.

Antibodies, Monoclonal↗

Aberrant expression of the p53 oncoprotein is a common feature of a wide spectrum of human malignancies.

Accumulation of the p53 protein was analysed in 212 human malignant lesions. Immunohistochemical staining with new polyclonal (CM-1) and monoclonal antibodies (BP 53-12 and BP53-24) to p53 on methacarn-fixed paraffin sections showed positive staining in 161 (76%). The positive tumours were found across a wide range of human malignancies including breast, colon, stomach, bladder and testis carcinomas, soft-tissue sarcomas and melanomas. The staining was always confined to the malignant lesion. Immunoprecipitation and quantitative ELISA assays established that the positive staining was associated with accumulation of the protein and that the protein was frequently in a mutant conformation. Accumulation of mutant p53 protein is therefore a common feature of human malignant disease.

Antibodies↗

T4 polynucleotide kinase; cloning of the gene (pseT) and amplification of its product.

The T4 gene (pseT) for polynucleotide kinase (pnk) has been cloned in lambda. Induction of a lambda E-W-S-cI857 prophage in which the pseT gene can be transcribed from the late lambda promoter, PR1, leads to greater than 100-fold amplification of pnk activity; pnk comprises approximately 7% of the total soluble cell protein. The purified enzyme, as expected, is both a 5'-kinase and a 3'-phosphatase. The amino acid sequence deduced from an open reading frame identified as the pseT gene contains a sequence which corresponds particularly well with that part of the adenine nucleotide binding site of adenylate kinase shown to form a flexible loop. A deletion mutant that lacks 5'-kinase activity, and possibly also 3'-phosphatase activity, has lost two amino acids from within the proposed loop structure. A second region of the pnk sequence shares homology with phosphoglycerate kinase, yeast inorganic pyrophosphatase and histone 2b from various organisms.

Amino Acid Sequence↗