Nucleotide sequence variation is frequent in the mitochondrial DNA displacement loop region of individual human tumor cells.

The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) displacement loop (D-loop) regions of 76 various tumor cell lines were examined to investigate the existence of a specific relationship between a somatic mtDNA sequence and initiation and/or progression of a tumor. Based on molecular cloning-sequencing analysis, a nucleotide sequence in the D-loop region in each cell line was found to be homoplasmic. Several site-specific nucleotide variations were found in stomach and liver tumor cell lines more frequently than those in other tumor cell lines.