Figure 4

(A) Example of PCR amplification of SCCA cDNA by heminested PCR in tumour and nontumour liver tissue, surgically obtained from the same patient. Parallel amplification of β actin cDNA is used as control of cellular mRNA. PC=positive control; NC=negative control. (B) Sequence alignment of SCCA amino-acid sequences obtained from direct sequencing of cDNA of 14 HCCs. The sequence at the top is SCCA1 and the sequence at the bottom is SCCA2 (Suminami et al, 1991). Amino-acid changes differing from SCCA1 reference sequence are reported. Cases 2, 5, 6, 7, 14 show the G₃₅₁ → A mutation (SCCA-PD).