• Fang Guo, Hai Gong, Huanhuan Zhao, Jing Chen, Yiming Zhang, Lihua Zhang, Xin Shi, Aifeng Zhang, Hui Jin, Jianqiong Zhang, and Youji He.
• Department of Pathogenic Biology and Immunology, Medical School of Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.
• Sci Rep. 2018 Apr 17; 8 (1): 6076.

AbstractMutations in KRAS exon 2, BRAF and PIK3CA are commonly present in colorectal cancer (CRC) worldwide, but few data about RAS mutations outside KRAS exon 2 are available for Chinese CRCs. We, therefore, determined the mutation frequencies and prognostic values of KRAS exon 2, 3 and 4, NRAS exon 2 and 3, PIK3CA exon 9 and 20, and BRAF exon 15 by PCR and direct sequencing in 353 CRC patients from two Chinese clinical centers. KRAS exon 2, BRAF, PIK3CA mutations were identified in 42.2%, 4.5%, 12.3% of the cases, respectively. We found "rare mutations" in RAS genes in nearly 14% of CRCs-i.e., in almost a quarter (24.0%) of KRAS exon 2 wild type CRCs, including 2.3% in KRAS exon 3, 8.2% in KRAS exon 4 and 3.4% in NRAS. Stage I-III patients with PIK3CA or NRAS mutations developed more distant metastases (3-year risk in PIK3CA mutated and wild type patients: 23.3% vs 11.5%, P = 0.03; multivariate Hazard ratio (HR) = 3.129, P = 0.003; 3-year risk in NRAS mutated and wild type patients: 40.0% vs 12.2%, P = 0.012; multivariate HR = 5.152, P = 0.003). Our data emphasizes the importance of these novel molecular features in CRCs.

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