Delineation of a minimal region of deletion at 6q16.3 in follicular lymphoma and construction of a bacterial artificial chromosome contig spanning a 6‐megabase region of 6q16–q21

Abstract

Regional deletions of 6q are frequent karyotypic alterations in malignant lymphoma and are associated with an adverse clinical outcome. One such region of recurrent deletion is 6q16-q21; however, the specific genes affected have not been identified. Our objective in this study was to identify cases with deletion of 6q16-q21 in follicular lymphoma and to define a minimal region of deletion. A physical map of 6q16.2-q21 was constructed using map information from both sequence-based and bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) fingerprint-based maps. Forty-three BAC clones spanning a 6-Mb region of 6q16.2-q21 were identified and obtained from the RP-11 library. Selected BACs were fluorescence-labeled and hybridized to a series of 34 follicular lymphomas with a regional 6q deletion detected by G banding. Twenty-four cases with deletion of the 6q16.3 region were detected. A minimal deletion of 2.3 Mb was defined. Our study has identified a limited region of deletion of 6q16.3 that may implicate four known genes in follicular lymphoma and possibly in other cancers. A BAC contig spanning a 6-Mb region has been anchored to the 6q16.2-q21 region. This map represents a useful resource for gene identification in this region, not only in lymphoma but also in other neoplasms with 6q alterations.