Frequent allelic imbalance suggests involvement of a tumor suppressor gene at 1p36 in the pathogenesis of human lung cancers.

The short arm of chromosome 1 is among the most frequently affected regions in various types of common adult cancers as well as in neuroblastoma. In a previous study of ours, frequent allelic imbalance at the TP73 locus at 1p36 was noted in lung cancer despite the absence of TP73 mutations. This suggested the possible existence of an as yet unidentified tumor suppressor gene on 1p. Our initial attempt using the candidate gene approach did not yield any somatic mutations in the 14-3-3sigma gene (official gene symbol, SFN), a mediator of G2 arrest by TP53. Detailed deletion mapping of the telomeric region of 1p was thus carried out as an initial step toward positional cloning. We used seven polymorphic markers in addition to TP73 to examine 61 primary lung cancers. Allelic imbalance at one or more loci of 1p36 was observed in 30 of the 61 cases, whereas D1S508 at 1p36.2 exhibited the highest frequency (45%) of allelic imbalance among the 1p36 markers examined. In contrast, two proximal markers at 1p32-34 showed significantly less frequent (11-14%) allelic imbalance. Consequently, the present study identified the shortest region of overlap between D1S507 and TP73, which included the most frequently affected marker, D1S508. In addition, several cases exhibited allelic imbalance confined to a subtelomeric region distal to D1S2845 at 1p36.3. The present findings warrant future studies to identify the putative tumor suppressor gene(s) at 1p36 to gain a better understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of lung cancer. Genes Chromosomes Cancer 28:342-346, 2000. Copyright 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.