COMMON REGIONS OF DELETION IN CHROMOSOME REGIONS 3P12 AND 3P14.2 IN PRIMARY CLEAR-CELL RENAL CARCINOMAS

Nearly all clear cell renal cell carcinomas (RCCs) exhibit loss of all eles on the short arm of chromosome 3. Loss and mutation at the von Hi ppel-Lindau (VHL) gene at 3p25 probably occurs in most RCCs and, since the VHL gene was recently cloned, data on VHL involvement in RCCs is accumulating. However, the region 3p14-p12, a region that contains the familial RCC-associated t(3;8)(p14.2;q24) chromosome translocation an d the small cell lung carcinoma-associated homozygous deletion at 3p13 -12, has also been reported to exhibit allele loss in a large fraction of RCCs. In order to focus future studies on potential suppressor gen es in the 3p14-p12 region, we have studied allele loss in 30 RCCs with 9 polymorphic simple sequence repeat markers spanning 3p21.1-p12. Par tial losses in the 3p21-p12 region were observed, allowing determinati on of common regions of loss of heterozygosity overlap in 15 RCCs. Res ults suggested that most RCCs exhibit loss in a region which brackets the t(3;8) familial chromosome translocation at 3p14.2, and some show additional deletions within the U2020 small cell lung carcinoma deleti on at 3p12.