Genomic alterations in human mesothelioma including high resolution mapping of common regions of DNA loss in chromosome arm 6q.

BACKGROUND: Molecular genetic analysis of 14 freshly resected human mesotheliomas was used to identify regions in the tumor genomes that display DNA copy number alterations, especially the regions that may harbor tumor suppressor genes.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Three methods for molecular analysis were used, comparative genomic hybridization (CGH), loss of heterozygosity (LOH) and a new method, quantitative microsatellite analysis (QuMA).

RESULTS: The most frequent alteration detected by CGH and LOH was deletion in chromosome 6q, for which QuMA was performed at 30 different loci so as to define the region(s) of common deletion(s). Our data indicates that there are three independent regions of common deletion, one of size 8.4 Mb located at 6q14, a second of size 15.9 Mb at 6q22 and a third of size 12.0 Mb at 6q24.

CONCLUSION: This suggests that at least 3 tumor suppressor genes mapped to chromosome 6q are commonly involved in the pathogenesis of mesothelioma.