A NEW HIGHLY POLYMORPHIC DNA RESTRICTION SITE MARKER IN THE 5' REGIONOF THE HUMAN TYROSINE-HYDROXYLASE GENE (TH) DETECTING LOSS OF HETEROZYGOSITY IN HUMAN EMBRYONAL RHABDOMYOSARCOMA

We have isolated a new marker (cos11-5TH) that detects an MspI restric tion fragment length polymorphism in the 5' region of the human tyrosi ne hydroxylase gene (TH) on chromosome band 11p15.5. This region of hu man chromosome 11 contains several important loci for disease phenotyp es including Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS), Wilms' tumor, and embr yonal rhabdomyosarcoma. Thus, identification of new polymorphic marker s in this region are important for future gene mapping and linkage ana lyses. To better define the region of 11p15.5 deleted in embryonal rha bdomyosarcoma, this new marker was used to investigate allelic losses in embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma tumors.