ANALYSIS OF THE BRCA1 AND BRCA2 GENES IN SPORADIC MENINGIOMAS

Several lines of evidence suggest a relationship between the occurrenc e of meningiomas and that of breast carcinomas: Both occur more freque ntly in women than in men, and a higher incidence of meningiomas has b een observed in patients with a history of breast carcinoma. Both tumo r types also express receptors that are associated with a proliferativ e response to progesterone, estrogen, and androgen hormones. Despite t his clinical evidence, no genetic links between the two tumor types ha ve been found. The breast carcinoma genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 have been li nked to familial and sporadic forms of breast cancer and ovarian cance r, providing an opportunity to test this clinical observation. We cond ucted studies to detect alterations of the BRCA genes in meningiomas. Evaluation of 60 sporadic meningiomas with a panel of eight microsatel lite and two restriction fragment length polymorphism markers at the l ocations of BRCA1 and BRCA2 demonstrated no loss of heterozygosity. Mi crosatellite instability was detected for one meningioma at two marker s close to the BRCA2 locus. Northern blot analysis did not reveal any differences in mRNA expression of meningiomas compared to control tiss ues. These results suggest that alterations of the BRCA I and BRCA2 ge nes are not common pathogenetic events in the development of sporadic meningiomas. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.