Allelic loss in human intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: Correlation between chromosome 8p22 and tumor progression

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is the second most common malignant primary tumor of the liver in Japan. Despite progress in operative techniques and adjuvant therapy, the prognosis of ICC remains very poor. Therefore, it is important to investigate the mechanism of carcinogenesis and progression of ICC. We screened allelic losses at 6 loci, including that of novel tumor-suppressor gene FEZ1 on chromosome 8p, and at 5 microsatellite loci to define the association with tumor-suppressor genes (HNPCC, APC, RB1, p53, DCC) in tumors from 18 unrelated ICC patients by PCR–loss of heterozygosity (LOH) assay and correlated the alterations with clinicopathological parameters. As a result, 61.1% (11 of 18) of patients showed LOH at 1 of the loci at least, and microsatellite instability was observed in 16.7% (3 of 18). At locus D8S258, relatively frequent LOH was detected (17.6%) compared with other loci on chromosome 8p. Among the other 5 chromosomal arms tested, the highest frequency of LOH (23.5%) was observed at D17S153. Fifty percent of cases with the mass-forming + periductal infiltrating type were frequently detected by LOH at D8S258 compared to cases of the mass-forming or intraductal growth type. In conclusion, we show that 1 putative tumor-suppressor gene on 8p22 may relate to progression of ICC and suggest that the p53 tumor-suppressor gene may be associated with carcinogenesis of ICC. Int. J. Cancer 88:228–231, 2000. © 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.