A new inherited RET proto-oncogene mutation associated with familial medullary thyroid carcinoma and polymorphisms in adjacent regions

A new point mutation, TCG(Ser)-->GCG(Ala) in codon 891, exon 15 of the RET protooncogene was revealed in two patients from a pedigree with familial medullary thyroid carcinoma (FMTC), but not in healthy persons. A linkage analysis with two well-known and two new intragene polymorphisms showed that informative polymorphic markers, the phenotypic expression of the disease, and the mutation are cosegregated in the studied pedigree. Two new polymorphisms, G/A at position-24 of intron 14 and C/T in codon 836 of exon 14, were found in the RET protooncogene. The frequencies of allele 1 of the polymorphic site in codon 836 were the same (0.96) in the Russian and German populations. This was also characteristic of two polymorphisms revealed earlier, namely, the sites in codons 691 (0.80 and 0.81, respectively) and 904 (0.21 and 0.22). However, the frequency of allele 1 of the polymorphisms in intron 14 differed significantly (0.87 and 0.77, respectively).