A collaborative linkage study of melanoma families that are not linked to known melanoma loci is ongoing. Power studies have been performed to pick the most informative families for the search for an additional melanoma locus and genotyping for a genome wide scan has been completed on these samples. Analyses of the genome scan have been performed and results were presented at previous meetings of the Melanoma Consortium. Additional families from the Melanoma Consortium were added to the Phase 2 dataset to increase power. These Phase 2 samples were genotyped in regions showing suggestive evidence of linkage in the genome scan. Analyses of these data have been ongoing in this fiscal year, yielding significant evidence of linkage of early-onset melanoma to one region of the genome at chromosome 1p22. A paper presenting these results for cutaneous (skin) melanoma was published in this fiscal year. Additional families are being collected to add to this resource. In addition, we are following up intriguing evidence of a distinct locus in families with both ocular and skin melanoma. Additional families have been collected that have clustering of ocular and skin melanoma and genotyping and analysis are ongoing.
| Gillanders, Elizabeth; Juo, Suh-Hang Hank; Holland, Elizabeth A et al. (2003) Localization of a novel melanoma susceptibility locus to 1p22. Am J Hum Genet 73:301-13 |
