Fragile sites and bladder cancer

Continued reports of associations between environmentally induced chromosomal fragile sites and cancer prompted us to undertake a review of current literature to examine whether there might be a relationship between fragile sites and chromosomal alterations reported for bladder cancer. It was found that more than half (56%; odds ratio [OR] 4.70) of chromosomal rearrangements reported for bladder cancer were located at 77 (65%) of the 118 recognized fragile sites (OR= 6.88). Furthermore, 55% of the fragile sites implicated coincided with one or more genes that have been associated with human cancer (such as oncogenes, tumor suppressor, relonc, transloc, disorder, apoptotic, and angiogenic genes). The most common fragile sites involved were FRA1D, FRA1F, FRA8C, FRA9D, FRA9E, and FRA11C. This correlation suggests that there may be profiles of genetic damage via fragile site expression that lead to the development of at least a proportion of bladder cancers.