Trisomy 1q generating translocations in Wilms tumor

Unbalanced translocations generating trisomy of 1q are common iu Wilms; tum or (WT). We present eight unbalanced 1q translocations from seven, tumors a nd a review of the literature. An unbalanced translocation that results in a der(16)t(1q;16q) chromosome represents more than half of the published +1 q generating translocations in WT. This translocation is also common to man y other tumor types. Four of the tumors presented here contained this chrom osome and, in two cases, it was the primary acquired cytogenetic abnormalit y within the tumor. The other four translocations involved 9q32, 9q34, 17p1 ? and 21p11 as the partner to 1q. The chromosome 17 and 21 translocations o ccurred within the same tumor as apparently independent events. In contrast with the 16q translocations, these other translocations were secondary cyt ogenetic events, thereby indicating a role in tumor progression rather than initiation. Probes mapping to 1q12 and 1q21 were employed for fluorescence in situ hybridization and it was demonstrated that different 1q breakpoint s are possible. In this series, the majority of breakpoints either mapped t o 1q12 or were centromeric to this region. (C) Elsevier Science Inc., 1999. All rights reserved.