Prostate cancer in BRCA2 mutation carriers: Mechanisms of tumorigenicity and predicition for a much poorer prognosis

3175Introduction We previously reported six germline BRCA2 mutations in a set of 263 prostate cancer patients diagnosed at ≤ 55 years (Edwards et. al. 2003). The patients’ ages at diagnosis (years) and mutations were as follows: (A): 44, IVS17-1g>c; (B): 47, 7084del5; (C): 48, 2558insA; (D): 52, 8525delC; (E): 52, 6710del4; (F): 53, 7772insA. We have investigated the loss of heterozygosity in tumours and survival in these patients. Materials and Methods/Results DNA from formalin fixed tumour tissue was available from patients A, B, D, E, and F. Four microstaellite markers (D13S260, D13S171, D13S267 and D13S1493) within and flanking the gene were typed on the 5 tumours using an ABI 377 Genetic Analyser. ‘Peak height’ of the alleles was used to determine the ratio of allelic loss compared to either genomic DNA or adjacent normal tissue from the paraffin blocks. When informative markers (minimum 2 of 4 …