Analysis by pulsed field gel electrophoresis reveals complex rearrangements in two MET alleles in a chemically-treated human cell line, MNNG-HOS.

We have previously shown that two alleles of the MET locus are independently rearranged in the chemically-treated human cell line MNNG-HOS. One allele is the TPR-MET oncogene which was activated by fusion of the MET locus on chromosome 7 with the TPR locus on chromosome 1. The second allele is found on a der(7)t(1;7)(q23;q32) chromosome and is characterized by a deletion of the amino-terminus of the MET extracellular ligand binding domain. Here we present a pulsed field gel electrophoresis analysis which reveals that the two MET allele rearrangements in MNNG-HOS cells are more complex than originally thought. The breakpoint in MET on der(7) has been molecularly cloned and, unexpectedly, we found that rearrangement in this allele involves sequences derived from chromosome 2. Moreover, the rearrangement producing der(7) involves an inversion of the MET locus or a more complex alteration. Analysis of hybrid cells containing TPR-MET demonstrated that both the upstream and downstream portions of MET are conserved in this rearrangement and that oncogene activation occurred by an insertion of TPR sequences into the MET locus. These findings illustrate that when examined at the molecular level some chromosome abnormalities can be extremely complex and, thus, are of limited value in gene mapping studies.