A homozygous deletion on chromosome 3 in a small cell lung cancer cell line correlates with a region of tumor suppressor activity.
Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) tumors frequently display deletions on the short arm of chromosome 3 suggesting the existence of a 'tumor suppressor' gene within that region whose functional inactivation may be involved in tumorigenesis. Recently, a hybrid, HA(3)BB9F, was identified that contains a small fragment of human chromosome 3 of approximately 2 Mb on a mouse (A9) background (Killary et. al., 1992). This hybrid was utilized to define a functional tumor suppressor gene within 3p22-p21 which could suppress the tumorigenic properties of the mouse fibrosarcoma cell line. The existence of a tumor suppressor gene in the region 3p22-p21 is supported by the present report which describes the assessment of 89 SCLC and 32 non-SCLC lung cancer tumors and cell lines for the existence of a homozygous deletion(s) at 43 loci on the short arm of chromosome 3. One of the SCLC cell lines was found to harbor a homozygous deletion involving the loss of five markers on chromosome 3p. All five of the markers map to the region 3p21.3-p21.2 and four of the five markers are located within the chromosome 3 fragment exhibiting properties of tumor suppression in the HA(3)BB9F hybrid. The other tumors analysed all retained at least one copy of each of the markers assessed.
Department of Cellular and Structural Biology, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio 78284-7762.
M C
MC
Daly
R H
RH
Xiang
D
D
Buchhagen
C H
CH
Hensel
D K
DK
Garcia
A M
AM
Killary
J D
JD
Minna
S L
SL
Naylor
D002289:Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / Q000235:genetics; D018288:Carcinoma, Small Cell / Q000235:genetics*; D002872:Chromosome Deletion; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D002893:Chromosomes, Human, Pair 3; D016147:Genes, Tumor Suppressor; D006720:Homozygote; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured