DEFINITION AND REFINEMENT OF A REGION OF LOSS OF HETEROZYGOSITY AT 11Q23.3-Q24.3 IN EPITHELIAL OVARIAN-CANCER ASSOCIATED WITH POOR-PROGNOSIS

Previous cytogenetic and loss of heterozygosity (LOH) data suggest tha t disruption of chromosome 11q23-qter occurs frequently in epithelial ovarian cancer and is associated with an adverse clinicopathological p henotype. Ten polymorphic microsatellite repeat loci were analyzed by PCR from the 11q22-q25 region between D11S35 and D11S968 in 40 ovarian tumors (including 31 epithelial ovarian cancers). Two distinct region s of loss were detected, suggesting possible sites for genes involved in epithelial ovarian neoplasia: a large centromeric region between D1 1S35 and D11S933 (11q22-q23.3) and a telomeric 8.5-Mb region lying bet ween D11S934 and D11S1320 (11q23.3-24.3) not previously defined. LOH o f the latter region but not the former one was significantly associate d with poor survival, despite all tumors in this study haring LOH some where on chromosome 11. This analysis provides a starting point for po sitional cloning.