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Title: Screening for somatic mutations of the neurofibromatosis genes in nervous system and other solid tumors

Journal Article · · American Journal of Human Genetics
OSTI ID:133561
; ;  [1]
  1. McGill Univ., Montreal, Quebec (Canada); and others

Von Recklinghausen neurofibromatosis (NF1) and neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) are autosomal dominant inherited disorders which predispose carriers to various benign and malignant tumors. Both genes are thought to act as tumor suppressors with inactivation of both alleles resulting in abnormal cell growth. By inference from other hereditary cancer syndromes, it has been hypothesized that somatic mutation at the NF1 and NF2 loci is involved in the development of sporadic tumors of the types found with increased prevalence in these disorders. In addition to other malignancies, individuals with NF1 are at increased risk to develop astrocytomas and rhabdomyosarcomas. We have therefore screened 40 astrocytomas for LOH using three NF1-derived cDNA probes, and have found no abnormalities. Single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis of exons of the NF1 GAP-related domain has also failed to show any variants in a total of 70 astrocytomas and 14 rhabdomyosarcomas (7 each of embryonal and alveolar types). LOH of chromosome 22 markers is known to occur in meningioma, malignant melanoma, breast cancer, and ependymoma. SSCP of all 17 exons of the NF2 gene in 27 melanoma cell lines, 42 breast cancers, and 27 pendymomas revealed no alterations. In a screen of 151 menigiomas, 26 new variants have been found, bringing our total to 50 variants in this sample. These represent inactivating mutations (frameshift, splice-site, and nonsense), determined by direct sequencing. Since the majority of these changes occur in tumors previously shown to have LOH at chromosome 22 markers flanking NF2, our results support a tumor sequence role for this gene in meningiomas. In addition, given that 40% of our tumors do not show LOH over this region, we propose that other genes are involved in the development of this latter subset of meningiomas.

OSTI ID:
133561
Report Number(s):
CONF-941009-; ISSN 0002-9297; TRN: 95:005313-0289
Journal Information:
American Journal of Human Genetics, Vol. 55, Issue Suppl.3; Conference: 44. annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics, Montreal (Canada), 18-22 Oct 1994; Other Information: PBD: Sep 1994
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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