GENOMIC ORGANIZATION AND MUTATION ANALYSIS OF P73 IN OLIGODENDROGLIOMAS WITH CHROMOSOME-1 P-ARM DELETIONS

p73, a protein having substantial structural and functional similarity to p53, has recently been identified and demonstrated to be a potenti al tumor suppressor. Its location on human chromosome 1p36.33 implicat es p73 as a candidate for neuroblastoma. Like neuroblastoma, oligodend rogliomas also show a high frequency of deletions in chromosome 1p36.3 . To determine whether p73 is a potential tumor suppressor gene involv ed in the development of oligodendrogliomas, we performed mutation ana lysis of p73 in oligodendrogliomas with chromosome 1 p-arm deletions. We first determined the genomic organization and the intron-exon bound ary sequences of the p73 gene by long PCR, vectorette PCR, and Souther n hybridization. This gene spans about 65 kb with a large first intron . Primer pairs for the amplification of each of the 13 p73 encoding ex ons were designed in corresponding introns. The amplicons were then an alyzed using the denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography sys tem for mutations in the p73 gene. Twenty oligodendroglioma samples wi th 1p36.3 deletions were screened, but no mutations were detected exce pt for several polymorphisms. It is thus clear that p73 is not a candi date gene for oligodendroglioma despite its location in the frequently deleted 1p36.3 region. (C) 1998 Academic Press