Oncogene amplification in the proximal part of chromosome 6 in rat endometrial adenocarcinoma as revealed by combined BAC/PAC FISH, chromosome painting, zoo‐FISH, and allelotyping

Abstract

The inbred BDII rat is a valuable experimental model for the genetic analysis of endometrial adenocarcinoma (EAC). One common aberration detected by comparative genomic hybridization in rat EAC was gain/amplification affecting the proximal part of rat chromosome 6 (RNO6). We applied rat and mouse chromosome painting probes onto tumor cell metaphase preparations in order to detect and characterize gross RNO6 aberrations. In addition, the RNO6q11-q16 segment was analyzed by fluorescence in situ hybridization with probes representing 12 cancer-related genes in the region. The analysis revealed that seven tumors contained large RNO6-derived homogeneously staining regions (HSRs) in addition to several normal or near-normal RNO6 chromosomes. Five tumors (two of which also had HSRs) exhibited a selective increase of the RNO6q11-q16 segment, sometimes in conjunction with moderate amplification of one or a few genes. Most commonly, the amplification affected the region centered around band 6q16 and included the Mycn, Ddx1, and Rrm2 genes. A second region, centering around Slc8a1 and Xdh, also was affected by gene amplification but to a lesser extent. The aberrations in the proximal part of RNO6 were further analyzed using allelotyping of microsatellite markers in all tumors from animals that were heterozygous in the proximal RNO6 region. We could detect allelic imbalance (AI) in 12 of 20 informative tumors, 6 of which were in addition to those already analyzed by molecular cytogenetic methods as described. Our findings suggest that increase/amplification of genes in this chromosome region contribute to the development of this hormone-dependent tumor.