Allelotype of neuroblastoma.

Although relatively high incidence of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) on chromosomes 1p, 11q, and 14q have been reported in neuroblastoma, it is still unclear whether or not LOH occurs specifically on these chromosome arms in neuroblastoma since only a few chromosomal arms have been examined for LOH in previous studies. Therefore, we screened 81 cases of tumors for LOH on all 22 autosomes and chromosome X using 35 restriction fragment length polymorphism markers and eight microsatellite markers. High incidence of LOH (> 20%) was observed on six chromosome arms; 1p (26%), 2q (30%), 9p (36%), 11q (24%), 14q (22%), and 18q (31%). Frequencies of LOH on other chromosome arms were less than 13%. Patients with 9p LOH in the tumors showed statistically significant association with advanced stage of the disease and poor prognosis (P = 0.037 and P = 0.003, respectively) independently from N-myc amplification, while LOH on other chromosomes did not show association with stage, prognosis, and N-myc amplification. Thus, besides LOH on chromosomes 1p, 11q, and 14q, LOH on chromosomes 2q, 9p, and 18q also occurs relatively frequently in neuroblastoma, indicating the involvement of multiple tumor suppressor genes in the development of neuroblastoma. It is possible that there is a novel tumor suppressor gene on chromosome 9p which is involved in the progression of neuroblastoma.