Screening for von Hippel-Lindau disease by DNA polymorphism analysis

OBJECTIVE

Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease is a rare, inherited multisystem neoplastic disorder. There is no biochemical test available to distinguish VHL disease gene carriers from their healthy siblings. We evaluated DNA polymorphism analysis as a method for identifying disease gene carriers.

DESIGN

Prospective comparison of the results of DNA analysis with a comprehensive clinical screening examination.

SETTING

The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health.

PATIENTS

Blood was collected from 182 members of 16 families with VHL disease. Forty-eight asymptomatic individuals, at risk of developing this hereditary illness (with an affected parent or sibling), were examined for occult disease at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health and tested by DNA polymorphism analysis.

RESULTS

DNA polymorphism analysis predicted nine disease gene carriers and 33 individuals with the wild-type (normal) allele among the 48 individuals at risk of developing VHL disease; the test was not informative in six individuals. All nine individuals predicted to carry the VHL gene had evidence of occult disease on clinical examination. There was no clinical evidence of VHL disease in 32 of 33 individuals predicted to carry the wild-type allele.

CONCLUSIONS

DNA polymorphism analysis can identify individuals likely to carry the VHL disease gene among asymptomatic members of disease families. This technique serves to focus attention on those individuals who require periodic medical examination and may help to alleviate the morbidity and mortality associated with this disease.

Molecular and cellular characterization of human renal cell carcinoma cell lines

Recent studies have suggested that a tumor suppressor gene located in the region 3p21-26 of chromosome 3 is essential to the genesis of sporadic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and that other tumor suppressor genes located on other chromosomes may be involved with progression of this malignancy. The cellular heterogeneity of solid tumors complicates their analysis. In order to analyze a homogeneous population of tumor cells and identify genetic changes associated with histology in renal cortical tumors, we have established and characterized 35 RCC lines derived from tumor tissue from 31 patients with renal cell carcinomas. The overall success rate in establishing these cell lines from fresh or frozen specimens was 75% (18 of 24) and 35% (17 of 48), respectively. These lines differed in their morphology, growth rates, and tumorigenicity in athymic nude mice. Molecular characterization utilizing DNA fingerprinting and restriction fragment length polymorphism deletion analysis was performed to detect somatic mutations and loss of heterozygosity on the short arm of chromosome 3. Analysis revealed loss of heterozygosity on chromosome 3p in 25 cell lines derived from 28 informative nonpapillary forms of RCC (89%). Deletion-mapping analysis showed the retention of the distal locus, D3S18, in one of the RCC cell lines, which further localized the position of the putative tumor suppressor gene to the region proximal to D3S18. Although deletions on chromosome 3 have been recently suggested to be specific to the clear cell-type phenotype, our results revealed no correlation between loss of heterozygosity and clear or granular cell types.

A new polymorphic probe on chromosome 3p: lambda LIB36-68 (D3S615)

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Mapping of the von Hippel-Lindau disease locus to a small region of chromosome 3p by genetic linkage analysis

Genetic linkage studies were performed in 22 families with von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease by using polymorphic DNA markers from distal chromosome 3p. Linkage was detected between VHL disease and the markers D3S18 (Zmax = 6.6 at theta = 0.0, confidence interval (CI) 0.00-0.06), RAF1 (Zmax = 5.9 at theta = 0.06, CI 0.01-0.16), and THRB (Zmax 3.4 at theta = 0.11). Multipoint linkage analysis localized the VHL disease gene within a small region (approximately 8 cM) of 3p25-p26 between RAF1 and (D3S191, D3S225) and close to the D3S18 locus. There was no evidence of locus heterogeneity, and families with and without pheochromocytoma showed linkage to D3S18. The identification of DNA markers flanking the VHL disease gene allows reliable presymptomatic and prenatal diagnosis to be offered to informative families.

Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease: distinct phenotypes suggest more than one mutant allele at the VHL locus

As part of an attempt to locate the von Hippel-Lindau locus (VHL) on chromosome 3, we evaluated 41 families with von Hippel-Lindau disease from the United States and Canada. One large family was identified whose disease phenotype was distinct from typical VHL. The most common disease manifestation was pheochromocytoma occurring in 57% (27/47) of affected family members. Few (4/47) affected family members had symptomatic spinal or cerebellar hemangioblastomas; no affected family member had renal cell carcinoma (0/47) or pancreatic cysts (0/24). Previously, genetic analysis demonstrated that the disease manifestations in this family were linked to RAF1 and D3S18, markers shown to be linked to typical VHL. These results suggest that there are mutant alleles at the VHL locus associated with distinct tissue specificities.

Isolation and regional localization of a large collection (2,000) of single-copy DNA fragments on human chromosome 3 for mapping and cloning tumor suppressor genes

A collection of 2,000 lambda phage-carrying human single-copy inserts (greater than 700 bp) were isolated from two chromosome-3 flow-sorted libraries. The single-copy DNA fragments were first sorted into 3p and 3q locations and about 700 3p fragments were regionally mapped using a deletion mapping panel comprised of two human-hamster and two-human-mouse cell hybrids, each containing a chromosome 3 with different deletions in the short arm. The hybrids were extensively mapped with a set of standard 3p markers physically localized or ordered by linkage. The deletion mapping panel divided the short arm into five distinct subregions (A-E). The 3p fragments were distributed on 3p regions as follows: region A, 26%; B, 31%; C, 4%; D, 4% and E, 35%. We screened 300 single-copy DNA fragments from the distal part of 3p (regions A and B) with ten restriction endonucleases for their ability to detect restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs). Of these fragments 110 (36%) were found to detect useful RFLPs; 35% detected polymorphisms with frequency of heterozygosity of 40% or higher, and 25% with frequency of 30% or higher. All polymorphisms originated from single loci and most of them were of the base pair substitution type. These RFLP markers make it possible to construct a fine linkage map that will span the distal part of chromosome 3p and encompasses the von Hippel-Lindau disease locus. The large number of single-copy fragments (2,000) spaced every 100-150 kb on chromosome 3 will make a significant contribution to mapping and sequencing the entire chromosome 3. The 300 conserved chromosome 3 probes will increase the existing knowledge of man-mouse homologies.

A new polymorphic probe on chromosome 3p: lambda LIB41-51 (D3S632)

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A new polymorphic probe on chromosome 3p: lambda LIB46-100 (D3S641)

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