LOCATION OF SEVERAL PUTATIVE GENES POSSIBLY INVOLVED IN HUMAN BREAST-CANCER PROGRESSION

Cancer is a genetic disease resulting from an accumulation of genetic abnormalities in various regulatory genes. Most studies on genetic alt erations in human breast cancer have involved primary tumors, The poss ible involvement of specific tumor suppressor genes in the later stage s of cancer progression is poorly documented, We investigated allelic losses associated with breast cancer progression by analyzing 55 polym orphic markers on 11 autosomal chromosomes in a series of 49 relapses (23 local recurrences and 26 distant metastases), All of the loss of h eterozygosity (LOH) regions reported in primary breast tumors were fre quent in both series of relapses. These results suggest that the allel ic losses that are common to the different series of samples occur ver y early during tumor progression, This study points to candidate metas tasis-related genes targeted by LOH on chromosome arms 3p21.3, 16q22.2 -23.2, and, possibly, 7q31 hut provides no clear evidence of LOH affec ting previously described metastasis-related genes such as NME1, MTS1, and TSG101.