Breakpoints in the human T-cell antigen receptor α-chain locus in two T-cell leukaemia patients with chromosomal translocations

Abstract

Specific chromosomal translocations have been observed in several human and animal tumours and are believed to be important in tumorigenesis^1,2. In many of these translocations the breakpoints lie near cellular homologues of transforming genes, suggesting that tumour development is partly due to the activation of these genes. The best-characterized example of such a translocation occurs in mouse plasmacytoma and human B-cell lymphoma, where c-myc, the cellular homologue of the viral oncogene myc, is brought into close proximity with either the light- or heavy-chain genes of the immunoglobulin loci^3–6, resulting in a change in the regulation of the myc gene⁷. T-cell malignancies also have characteristic chromosomal abnormalities, many of which seem to involve the 14q11–14q13 region^8–12. This region has recently been found to contain the α-chain genes of the human T-cell antigen receptor^13–15. Here we determine more precisely the chromosome breakpoints in two patients whose leukaemic T cells contain reciprocal translocations between 11p13 and 14q13. Segregation analysis of somatic cell hybrids demonstrates that in both patients the breakpoints occur between the variable (V) and constant (C) region genes of the T-cell receptor α-chain locus, resulting in the translocation of the C-region gene from chromosome 14 to chromosome 11. As the 11p13 locus has been implicated in the development of Wilms' tumour^16,17, it is possible that either the Wilms' tumour gene or a yet unidentified gene in this region is involved in tumorigenesis and is altered as a result of its translocation into the T-cell receptor α-chain locus.