AN ALLELOTYPE OF PAPILLARY THYROID-CANCER

Although papillary carcinoma accounts for approximately 70% of all thy roid cancers, preliminary studies of allelic loss have thus far not id entified any areas of chomosomal deletion. We evaluated 30 papillary t hyroid carcinomas for chromosomal loss/allelic imbalance by testing at least 2 microsatellite markers from every autosomal arm. Fifteen of t he 30 tumors tested exhibited loss of heterozygosity/allelic imbalance (LOH/AI) at one or more loci. Chromosomal arms with frequent LOH/AI i ncluded 4q, 5p, 7p and 11p. An average of 1.1 chromosomal arms display ed LOH/AI in each individual tumor. Therefore, 4q, 5p, 7p and, to a le sser extent, 11p display significant LOH/AI in papillary thyroid cance r, which indicates the presence of putative tumor-suppressor gene loci at these chromosomal arms. (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.