Cytogenetic and molecular studies have suggested that the 1p32-pter region might contain tumor-suppressor genes involved in the pathogenesis of breast cancer and other malignancies. Isolation of these genes could be facilitated by studying tumor cell lines with well-defined deleted regions. We examined deletions on chromosome 1p in 10 breast tumor cell lines, using a panel of 36 polymorphic markers located mainly in the 1p32-pter region, that comprised microsatellite, restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) markers. Two regions of interest were clearly identified: one (27 cM apart) is located at 1p32-p34 and reduces the smallest common deleted region (SCDR) to 8 cM if recorded the previous 1p LOH studies from primary breast tumors and the other (15 cM) is located at 1p36.2, within the 'consensus region of LOH' in neuroblastoma. These results show that the study of cell lines can refine SCDRs identified in primary tumors and can be used to identify putative homozygous deletions and to study the expression and structure alterations of candidate tumor-suppressor genes in these deleted regions.

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