Localization of HeLa cell tumor-suppressor gene to the long arm of chromosome II.

Cytogenetic and molecular genetic analyses of human intraspecific HeLa x fibroblast hybrids have provided evidence for the presence of a tumor-suppressor gene(s) on chromosome 11 of normal cells. In the present study, we have carried out extensive RFLP analysis of various nontumorigenic and tumorigenic hybrids with at least 50 different chromosome 11-specific probes to determine the precise location of this tumor-suppressor gene(s). Two different hybrid systems, (1) microcell hybrids derived by the transfer of a normal chromosome 11 into a tumorigenic HeLa-derived hybrid cell and (2) somatic cell hybrids derived by the fusion of the HeLa (D98OR) cells to a retinoblastoma (Y79) cell line, were particularly informative. The analysis showed that all but one of the nontumorigenic hybrid cell lines contained a complete copy of the normal chromosome 11. This variant hybrid contained a segment of the long arm but had lost the entire short arm of the chromosome. The tumorigenic microcell and somatic cell hybrids had retained the short arm of the chromosome but had lost at least the q13-23 region of the chromosome. Thus, these results showed a perfect correlation between the presence of the long arm of chromosome 11 and the suppression of the tumorigenic phenotype. We conclude therefore that the gene(s) involved in the suppression of the HeLa cell tumors is localized to the long arm (q arm) of chromosome 11.