POOR CORRELATION WITH LOSS OF HETEROZYGOSITY ON CHROMOSOME 17P AND P53 MUTATIONS IN OVARIAN CANCERS

To define the target of chromosome 17p deletions, allelic losses in th e 17p11.2 to 13.3 regions of 32 ovarian cancers were investigated. Twe nty-one (68%) of 31 informative cancers had deletions on chromosome 17 p. None of these 21 cancers involved deletions in the entire chromosom e 17p even if deletions of a small chromosome region were infrequent, Of these 21, 17 cancers contained deletions at 17p13.1 or neighboring regions, The remaining 4 cancers with 17p deletions were uninformative for deletions at 17p13.1. Thus, most 17p deletions seemed to target t he 17p13.1 region in ovarian cancers, Of the 30 ovarian cancers screen ed, 6 contained p53 mutations. One p53 allele was lost as a consequenc e of deletion and the other was mutated in 4 cancers, Seventeen cancer s with deletions on 17p showed no evidence of p53 mutations, Thus, del etions on 17p that are common in ovarian cancers are not always accomp anied by p53 gene mutations. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.