CHOP (GADD153) has been shown to be a dominant negative inhibitor of specific transcription factors. Direct sequencing of the gene, amplified from the DNA of a Li-Fraumeni family index case (liposarcoma, breast cancer) revealed a constitutional variant within the coding region. This alteration, though not responsible for the Li-Fraumeni phenotype, resulted in a glutamic acid to lysine switch within the leucine zipper domain, at a residue conserved between CHOP and its potential target molecules and between the human and hamster sequences. The variant created a Taq I restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) facilitating screening. Analysis of 159 breast tumour DNA samples detected two encoding variant alleles (tumour and constitutional DNA).