To facilitate rapid screening of human cell lines and tumor samples for this specific gene rearrangement, we developed a sensitive detection method based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of TPR-MET mRNA.     ///    TPR-MET oncogenic rearrangement: detection by polymerase chain reaction amplification of the transcript and expression in human tumor cell lines..     ///    A preliminary survey of cell lines derived from a variety of human tumors indicates that TPR-MET rearrangement occurred and was expressed at very low frequencies by cells from 7 of 14 tumors of nonhematopoietic origin..     ///    A 205-base-pair DNA fragment characteristic of the TPR-MET rearrangement was detected in cell lines previously known to contain this altered sequence. 