Loss of heterozygosity and homozygous deletion of the tpr locus in human gastric cancer

Background Despite being one of the worldʹs most common neoplasias, there is little information on the molecular events that lead to gastric cancer. Molecular studies have shown that inactivation of tumor suppressor genes by mutation and/or allelic loss is an important genetic alteration in the multistep process of tumorigenesis. Methods In an attempt to identify a putative tumor suppressor gene involved in the carcinogenesis of gastric cancer, we performed Southern blot analysis using the tpr probe for 44 patients with gastric cancer, using tumor tissue and normal tissue from the same specimen. Results Of the 44 samples, 7 (16%) were informative, heterozygous cases for the tpr probe. Three of the informative cases showed a loss of heterozygosity and 3 cases showed homozygous deletion for the tpr probe (6 of 7;85%). Conclusions These findings suggest that tpr gene plays a role in gastric tumorigenesis, and this may be due to a tumor suppressor effect for the tpr gene.