Genetic Changes in Human Adrenocortical Carcinomas

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Abstract
Recent studies have suggested that loss of heterozygosity atloci on the short arm of human chromosome 11 (lip) maybe important in the pathogenesis of benign and malignantadrenal cortical tumors. To test this concept, adrenocortical carcinomas from nine patients and benign adrenal corti-cal lesions from eight patients were tested for loss of allelesat loci on human chromosomes 11, 13, and 17. All patients with adrenocortical carcinoma whose normal somatic tissues were heterozygous for a locus on chromosome 17p had lostalleles in the tumor. Four of six patients with adrenocortical carcinoma who were heterozygous for one or more alleles onchromosome lip in normal tissues had lost lip alleles in the tumor. Three of six patients with adrenocortical carcinoma showed loss of 13q alleles in the tumor. Loss of alleles onchromosomes lip, 13q, and 17p was observed in primarytumors and metastases but not in adrenocortical adenomasor hyperplastic lesions of the adrenal cortex. One patient with adrenocortical carcinoma had a somatic mutation inthe HRAS1 gene in the normal adrenal gland. The consis-tency of the genetic changes on chromosomes lip, 13q, and17p suggests that they are important in the pathogenesis of adrenocortical carcinoma. [J Natl Cancer Inst 81:518-523,1989]