Localization of human cadherin genes to chromosome regions exhibiting cancer-related loss of heterozygosity.

This report presents the chromosomal localization of cadherin genes. Cadherins are cellular adhesion molecules. Since disturbance of intracellular adhesion is important for invasion and metastasis of tumor cells, cadherins are considered prime candidates for tumor suppressor genes. A variety of solid tumors show loss of heterozygosity of the long arm of chromosome 16, which is indicative of the potential location of tumor suppressor genes. Refined and new localizations of six cadherin genes (CDH3, 5, 8, 11, 13, and 15) to the long arm of chromosome 16 are shown. CDH15 was localized to 16q24.3, in a region that exhibits loss of heterozygosity in a number of sporadic breast cancer tumors. Previous localization of CDH13 (H-cadherin) to 16q24 suggested this gene as a tumor suppressor candidate in the 16q24.3 loss of heterozygosity region; however, refined mapping presented in this report localizes CDH13 proximal to this region. A human EST homologous to the chicken cadherin-7 was partially sequenced and found to represent a new human cadherin. This cadherin mapped to chromosome 18q22-q23, a region that exhibits loss of heterozygosity in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas. CDH16 was localized to 8q22.1, a region exhibiting loss of heterozygosity in adult acute myeloid leukemia.