Deficiency of a 42-kilodalton protein in tumor-derived fibroblastic cells in neurofibromatosis.

Abstract

Cell proteins obtained from cultured normal appearing skin and neurofibromas of neurofibromatosis patients, and normal skin of normal donors were compared by SDS-PAGE and isoelectric focusing analysis. Essentially, identical protein patterns were obtained for the pellet fractions of all the strains. The lysate fraction binding patterns were also similar to each other, but a deficiency of a 42-kilodalton protein with pI 4.3 was observed in the four tumor-derived cell strains examined. These results raise the possibility that tumor-derived fibroblastic cells are of the same cell origin as skin fibroblasts, and that the deficiency of a 42-kilodalton protein could be related to the tumorigenicity in neurofibromatosis.