Genetic analysis of human malignancy using somatic cell hybrids and monochromosome transfer.

Evidence is presented for the existence of genes which regulate the malignant behaviour of human cancer cells. Observations obtained from somatic cell hybrid and monochromosome transfer studies suggest that recessive genes play an important part in the control of malignant expression. Loss of restriction fragment length polymorphism alleles, consistent with loss of these putative tumour-suppressor genes, is associated with an increasing number of human cancers.