Loss of heterozygosity and mitotic linkage maps in the mouse

Loss of heterozygosity is a significant oncogenetic mechanism and can involve a variety of mechanisms including chromosome loss, deletion, and homologous interchromosomal mitotic recombination. Analysis of H-2 antigen-loss variants from heterozygous murine cell lines provides an experimental system to estimate the relative contributions of different mechanisms for allele loss and to compare the chromosomal patterns of mitotic and meiotic recombination. Cytotoxic anti-H-2D antibodies and complement were used to isolate 161 independent target antigen-negative clones from H-2d/H-2b heterozygous cell lines; of these, 131 (84.5%) lost the allele encoding the target antigen. Allele-loss variants were typed and scored as either heterozygous or homozygous for six H-2D-proximal chromosome 17 markers and for one distal marker by restriction enzyme-site variations and Southern analysis. A single mitotic crossover could account for 50 clones (37%), with heterozygosity for at least one proximal marker and loss of heterozygosity for all markers distal to the putative recombination site. Eighty-two allele-loss variants (60%) were homozygous for all markers; the origin of these clones could be either chromosome loss or mitotic recombination between the centromere and the most proximal marker. Only 4 clones (3%) arose through more complex events such as multiple crossovers or deletion. A mitotic linkage map for mouse chromosome 17 was constructed, and the gene order deduced from somatic recombination was identical to that obtained by conventional transmission genetics. These results demonstrate that mitotic recombination is a common event leading to allele loss, in spite of the lack of evidence for frequent somatic pairing of homologous chromosomes. Mitotic mapping provides a defined system for comparison of mitotic and meiotic recombination and may lead to practical advances for elucidating somatic mechanisms of oncogenesis and for gene therapy in targeting mutations to specific sites through homologous recombination.