Evidence for a prostate cancer linkage to chromosome 20 in 159 hereditary prostate cancer families

Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy diagnosed in men in the US. G enetic susceptibility to prostate cancer has been well documented. A region at chromosome 20q13 (HPC20) has been reported to be linked to a prostate c ancer susceptibility gene. To confirm this finding, we genotyped 16 markers spanning similar to 95 cM on chromosome 20 in 159 hereditary prostate canc er (HPC) families. Positive (but not statistically significant) linkage sco res were observed from 20pter to 20q11, with the highest non-parametric Lin kage (NPL) score for the complete dataset of 1.02 (P=0.15) being observed a t D20S195 at 20q11. Evidence for linkage from parametric analyses with a do minant or a recessive model was weak. Interestingly, consistent with the or iginal findings of linkage to 20 g higher linkage scores were observed in t he subsets of families with a later age at diagnosis (greater than or equal to 65 years; n=80, NPL=1.94, P=0.029 at D20S186), fewer than five affected family members (n=69, NPL=1.74, P=0.037 at D20S889), or without male-to-ma le disease transmission (n=60, NPL=1.01, P=0.15 at D20S117). The region wit h positive linkage scores spanned similar to 60 cM from 20pter to 20q11 in these subsets of families. Our results are consistent with a prostate cance r susceptibility locus on chromosome 20.