DNA restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of human bronchogenic carcinoma.

DNA restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis has been successfully applied both to evaluate possible human susceptibility factors as well as to identify genes involved in malignant transformation of human cells. In this report we review previous applications of RFLP analysis to evaluation of human malignancies and discuss our RFLP studies of human bronchogenic carcinoma, which are in progress. Preliminary results of our analysis of the RFLP associated with the cHa ras variable tandem repeat (VTR) indicate that rare alleles of this VTR are more frequent in patients with bronchogenic carcinoma than in controls.