Karyotypic characterization of papillary thyroid carcinomas

Abstract

BACKGROUND Cytogenetic studies performed in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) identified chromosome 10q rearrangements with breakpoints at 10q11.2 as the most frequent aberrations in these tumors. In the current study, the authors aimed to identify other chromosomal abnormalities nonrandomly associated with papillary thyroid carcinomas. METHODS Cytogenetic analysis was performed on 94 papillary thyroid carcinomas after short‐term culture of the tumors sterile fragments. RESULTS Clonal chromosomal changes were found in 37 tumors (40%). Structural cytogenetic abnormalities were observed in 18 carcinomas. Chromosomes 1, 3, 7, and 10 were the most frequently involved in rearrangements. Pooled results of the breakpoints detected in these tumors, as well as those described in the literature, allowed the authors to verify as the most common breakpoint loci 1p32‐36, 1p11‐13, 1q, 3p25‐26, 7q34‐36, and 10q11.2. The correlation between the karyotype features of the 94 PTCs and the histologic data revealed that some PTC follicular variants were characterized by chromosomal aberrations commonly found in thyroid follicular adenomas: a del(11)(q13q13), a t(2;3)(q13;p35), and gains of chromosomes 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 17, and 20. In the tall cell PTC variant group, 4 of the 7 tumors presented clonal cytogenetic changes, 3 (75%) of which were characterized by anomalies of chromosome 2 that lead to a overrepresentation of the long arm of this chromosome. Noted also in these series was an association between complex karyotypes and tumors with poorly differentiated histiotypes. CONCLUSIONS In this study, the authors report chromosome 1p32‐36, 1p11‐13, 3p25‐26, and 7q32‐36 as novel breakpoint cluster regions in PTC, and they suggest that there are cytogenetic changes preferentially associated with the follicular and tall cell PTC variants. Cancer 2001;92:2529–38. © 2001 American Cancer Society.

Poorly differentiated and anaplastic thyroid carcinomas: chromosomal and oligo-array profile of five new cell lines

“…At the cytogenetic level, the most frequent structural rearrangements in papillary cancers are abnormalities with breakpoints at 10q11.2 (Roque et al, 2001). These alterations lead to the activation of the RET proto-oncogene.…”

Potential Utility and Limitations of Thyroid Cancer Cell Lines as Models for Studying Thyroid Cancer

“…Therefore, accurate information on the karyotypes of cell lines derived from such tumors is of particular importance. Cytogenetic studies on primary cultures of PTC cells have shown that these tumors mainly have diploid karyotypes, and most cases exhibit the 10q11.2 rearrangement at the cytogenetic or molecular level (27). Among PTC-derived cell lines, to our knowledge, an extensive karyotype description has been reported only for the BCPAP cell line (28,29).…”

Detection and molecular characterisation of thyroid cancer precursor lesions in a specific subset of Hashimoto's thyroiditis

“…All caps were handled with gloves to reduce contamination and kept separately from the others during all the following experimental procedures. After microdissection and DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was carried out in the presence of specific primers flanking the sequence of two microsatellite markers (D7S-1779 and D7S-2468) located at the chromosomal region 7q32 -34 (cytogenetic localization 150 -152 cM) previously reported to be altered in thyroid cancer (Zhang et al, 1998;Roque et al, 2001).…”