Abstract
The objectives of this study were to better our understanding of the carcinogenesis of gestational trophoblastic tumours and to investigate the possible presence of mutational alteration of the p53 tumour-suppressor gene in these tumours. Amplification-based direct DNA sequencing was performed on 14 hydatidiform moles, six invasive moles, eight choriocarcinomas and ten normal early placental tissues. No mutation in exons 5-8 was detected in any of these 38 tissue specimens. These results suggest that a mutation in p53 tumour suppressor either does not exist or is a very rare event in gestational trophoblastic tumours. The gestational trophoblastic tumours probably involve a tumour-suppressor gene other than p53 gene or may follow a completely different pathway to their malignant phenotype.