Glutathione transferase P1 polymorphism in neuroblastoma studied by endonuclease restriction mapping

Several members of the different glutathione transferase (GST) gene classes are polymorphic. Particular interest has been focused on the GSTP class be cause this gene class is up-regulated during the early stage of oncogenesis and is significantly overexpressed in many human tumors. It has also been shown that high levels of GSTP1 expression are associated directly with tum or drug resistance and with poor patient survival. Our aim was to understand the possible association between GSTP1 polymorphi sm and cellular response to chemotherapeutic drugs in neuroblastoma. In fac t, several antineoplastic drugs used in the neuroblastoma high-risk chemoth erapeutic protocol are potential substrates of GSTP1-1 (etoposide, adriamyc in and carboplatin). The GSTP1 genotype homozygote *A/*A was identified in 11 patients independe nt of their response to the chemotherapeutic treatment. Only four patients had a heterozygote genotype A*/B*. Therefore, based on our preliminary data , we were not able to conclude that GSTP1 polymorphism had an impact on pat ient response to treatment in neuroblastoma.