Carcinogenesis vol.28 no.1 pp.38–48, 2007 doi:10.1093/carcin/bgl086 Advance Access publication June 13, 2006 Frequent occurrence of uniparental disomy in colorectal cancer Claus Lindbjerg Andersen, Carsten Wiuf, Introduction Mogens Kruhøffer, Marianne Korsgaard, Søren Laurberg and Torben Falck Ørntoftà The development and progression of colorectal cancer (CRC) is a multistep process leading to an accumulation of genomic 1Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory, Department of Clinical Biochemistry, alterations (1,2). The nature of these alterations varies from Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby DK-8200, Aarhus N, Denmark, minute point mutations to gross chromosomal rearrange- 2Bioinformatics Research Center (BiRC), University of Aarhus, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark and 3Department of Surgery, THG, ments. In particular, recurrent alterations are thought to be Aarhus University Hospital, DK-8000, Aarhus C, Denmark important for tumor pathogenesis (3). Several studies have ÃTo whom correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed. focused on mapping genomic alterations occurring recur- Tel: +45 89495100; Fax: +45 89496018; rently in CRC, commonly using genome-wide technologies Email:
[email protected] like either comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) or loss We used SNP arrays to identify and characterize genomic of heterozygosity (LOH) analysis (4–6). These methods alterations associated with colorectal cancer (CRC). Laser identify regions experiencing an altered DNA copy number microdissected cancer cells from 15 adenocarinomas were or LOH. Importantly, results obtained by either method are investigated by Affymetrix Mapping 10K SNP arrays. negatively influenced by factors like normal cell contamina- Analysis of the data extracted from the SNP arrays tion and intratumor heterogeneity. Normal cell contamination revealed multiple regions with copy number alterations occurs because tumor tissues are only rarely homogenous, and loss of heterozygosity (LOH).