3 DISCRETE REGIONS OF DELETION AT 3P IN HEAD AND NECK CANCERS

Alteration of the short arm of chromosome 3 is one of the most consist ent cytogenetic abnormalities found in human head and neck cancers. Th ese alterations, composed of translocations and deletions, have been a ssociated with the presence of a tumor suppressor gene(s), but no clea r evidence of the location of this presumptive gene(s) was available. We performed a molecular analysis of the 3p region using a polymerase chain reaction-based approach. Twenty-eight of the 38 cases analyzed ( 74%) showed the presence of single or multiple areas of allelic loss. Three commonly deleted regions, tentatively mapped to 3p24-ter, 3p21.3 , and 3p14--cen, were identified. Our results suggest that at least th ree oncosuppressor genes mapping on 3p may be involved in head and nec k cancer development and support a common oncogenic pathway with squam ous cell lung cancer, for which a similar pattern of 3p deletion has b een described recently.