Comprehensive allelotyping of human renal cell carcinomas using microsatellite DNA probes

The von Hippel-Lindau locus on chromosome 3p is a tumor suppressor gene known to be involved in nonpapillary renal cell carcinoma. A previous loss of heterozygosity (LOH) study aimed at determining the allelotype of kidney tumors has indicated that in addition to 3p, chromosome arms 5q, 6q, 10q, 11q, 17p, and 19p may also harbor tumor suppressor genes. However, cytogenetic studies reveal that chromosomes 3p, 6q, 8p, 9pq, and 14q most frequently undergo karyotypic changes in renal tumors. To resolve these differences, a collection of microsatellite DNA probes has been used to scan for LOH so that 90% of individual tumor genomes were rendered informative for allele loss. The assay is capable of detecting quantitative genomic alterations in tumor cells as well. We find that LOH is most frequent for chromosome arm 3p. However, in no tumor is 3p exclusively affected. LOH for 6q, 8p, 9pq, and 14q is also distinctly elevated for both nonpapillary as well as papillary tumors and suggest that many of the tumor suppressor loci involved may be common to the etiology of both forms of kidney cancer.