Department of Tumor Cell Biology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee 38101, USA.
The human Gi-phase cyclins are important regulators of cell cycle progression that interact with various cyclin-dependent kinases and facilitate entry into S-phase. We have confirmed the localization of the human cyclin C (CCNC) gene to chromosome 6q21 and of human cyclin E (CCNE) to 19q12. The CCNC gene structure was also determined, and we have shown that it is deleted in a subset of acute lymphoblastic leukemias, including a patient sample containing a t(2;6)(p21;q15), with no apparent cytogenetic deletion. Single-strand conformational polymorphism analysis of the remaining CCNC allele from patients with a deletion of one allele established that there were no further mutations within the exons or the flanking intronic sequences. These results suggest either that haploinsufficiency of the cyclin C protein is sufficient to promote tumorigenesis or that the important tumor suppressor gene is linked to the CCNC locus.