THE PUTATIVE TUMOR-SUPPRESSOR GENE ON CHROMOSOME-5Q FOR HEPATOCELLULAR-CARCINOMA IS DISTINCT FROM THE MCC AND APC GENES

We have previously shown that the tumor-suppressor gene for hepatocell ular carcinoma (HCC) without cirrhosis may be located on chromosome 5q 35-qter.1 In this study, we analyzed nine cases of primary HCC without cirrhosis using probes from the MCC and APC genes, which are in the r egion 5q21-22. None of the informative cases had allele loss detected by these probes, whereas the probe lambdaMS8 for the region 5q35-qter showed allele loss in six out of six informative cases. The results co nfirm that the putative tumor suppressor gene for HCC without cirrhosi s on chromosome 5q is distinct from the MCC and APC genes.