Inclusion of new microsatellite repeats in allelic loss analysis excludes retention of heterozygosity in the renal cell carcinoma critical region in 3p21

A variety of human cancers, including renal cell carcinoma (RCC), show freq uent heterozygous deletion events in 3p21.3. An approximate 400-kb segment from within 3p21.3 is suspect of harboring a tumor suppressor gene, as it i s homozygously deleted in three lung cancer cell lines and heterozygously d eleted in virtually all lung tumors. Loss of heterozygosity (LOH) studies o f this segment are hampered by the absence of highly informative markers. W e have identified several new nucleotide repeats that map within this regio n, and have used these to complement our previous LOH studies in RCC. Our p resent analysis clearly shows that the common region of homozygous deletion s in the lung cancer cell lines is always contained within the smallest reg ion of overlap of heterozygous deletions in RCC. (C) Elsevier Science Inc., 1999. All rights reserved.