An albumin-simian virus 40 (SV40) large T-antigen (T-Ag) transgenic model and a chemically induced model of multistage hepatocarcinogenesis were created in our laboratory to study the molecular mechanisms involved in the genesis and progression of neoplasia in the rat liver. In the study presented here, these two models of rat hepatocarcinogenesis were used to perform a comparative mutational analysis of three tumor suppressor genes involved in hepatic neoplastic growth. By using polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformation polymorphism analysis and sequencing, exons 5-8 of the p53 tumor suppressor gene and a region between nt 4325 and 4479 of the rat mannose 6-phosphate/insulin-like growth factor 2 receptor (M6p/Igf2r) coding sequence were screened. The latter is homologous to the human M6P/IGF2r coding sequence which is mutated in human hepatocellular carcinoma. A complete single strand conformation polymorphism analysis of the entire coding region of the rat adenomatous polyposis coli (Apc) gene was also performed for the first time in rat tumorigenic samples. Twenty-six chemically induced rat hepatocellular carcinomas, 21 neoplasms from the livers of SV40 T-Ag animals, and five immortalized hepatic cell lines from the transgenic rats were evaluated. None of the hepatic tumors exhibited mutations in the regions analyzed. The albumin-SV40 T-Ag transgenic cell line L-60, derived from normal hepatic tissue, had two mutations in contiguous codons of exon 5 of the p53 gene: a GGT --> GTT missense transversion in codon 183 and a silent mutation in codon 184. The transversion, which may affect the DNA binding domain of the p53 protein, probably originated during cell culture and may have been positively selected because it gave a growth advantage to the mutated cells. The studied region of the M6p/Igf2r gene was not found to be mutated in these two models of rat hepatocarcinogenesis. Although M6p/Igf2r, Apc, and p53 have been shown to be mutated in a variety of human hepatic proliferative diseases, our results indicate that aberrations in these genes may not be necessary for liver carcinogenesis in the rat.