ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Allelic imbalance at chromosome 11 in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma in an Indian patient population

G Mondal¹, A Tripathi², N Bhattacharya², N Sikdar⁵, A Roy³, A Sengupta⁴, B Roy⁵, C K Panda², S Roychoudhury¹

¹ Human Genetics and Genomics Division, Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata 700 032, India
² Department of Oncogene Regulation, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Kolkata 700 026, India
³ Department of Pathology, Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata 700 073, India
⁴ Cancer Centre and Welfare Home, Kolkata 700 063, India
⁵ Anthropology and Human Genetics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata 700 035, India

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr S Roychoudhury, Human Genetics and Genomics Division, Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, 4, Raja S. C. Mullick Road, Kolkata 700 032, India;
susantar{at}hotmail.com

Background: Genetic instability of chromosome 11 is a frequent event in many solid tumours, including head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).

Aims: To perform allelic imbalance analysis of cytogenetically mapped altered regions of human chromosome 11 in patients with HNSCC from eastern India.

Methods: Genomic alterations were investigated using highly polymorphic microsatellite markers in both HNSCC and leukoplakia tissues.

Results: Microsatellite markers D11S1758 from 11p13–15 and D11S925 from 11q23.3–24 had the highest frequency (38% and 32%, respectively) of loss of heterozygosity among all the markers analysed. Allelic loss at the marker D11S925 was seen in both leukoplakia and in all stages of HNSCC tumour tissues suggesting that it is an early event in HNSCC tumorigenesis. Microsatellite size alteration was also found to be high (> 20%) in several markers. In leukoplakia samples microsatellite instability was seen at a higher frequency than loss of the allele, indicating such alterations might initiate the process of tumorigenesis in HNSCC.

Conclusions: The high rate of chromosomal alterations at 11q21–24 in HNSCC suggests the presence of a putative tumour suppressor gene in this region.

Keywords: head and neck squamous cell carcinoma; chromosome 11; tumour suppressor gene(s); loss of heterozygosity; microsatellite size alteration

Abbreviations: H, heterozygosity; HNSCC, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma; LOH, loss of heterozygosity; MA, microsatellite size alteration; MSI, microsatellite instability; PBL, peripheral blood leucocyte; PCR, polymerase chain reaction; RFLP, restriction fragment length polymorphism

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Onda, T., Uzawa, K., Nakashima, D., Saito, K., Iwadate, Y., Seki, N., Shibahara, T., Tanzawa, H. (2007). Lin-7C/VELI3/MALS-3: An Essential Component in Metastasis of Human Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Cancer Res. 67: 9643-9648 [Abstract] [Full Text]