Abstract
BACKGROUND: Prostate cancer linkage studies have been used to localize rare and presumably highly penetrant cancer susceptibility genes. Underlying genetic heterogeneity, as well as the high sporadic background of the disease, has resulted in many signals that are often not reproducible between research studies. METHODS: We conducted a SNP-based genome wide linkage scan on 131 Caucasian prostate cancer families participating in the University of Michigan Prostate Cancer Genetics Project (PCGP). RESULTS: The strongest evidence for linkage was detected at 16q23 (LOD = 2.70 at rs1079635). Prostate cancer linkage to the same region of 16q23 has been observed by others and the region contains several strong candidate genes including the known prostate cancer tumor suppressor genes ATBF1 and WWOX. This linkage signal was not detected in our prior linkage study on 175 PCGP families, illustrating the genetic heterogeneity underlying prostate cancer susceptibility. CONCLUSIONS: Further linkage studies in combination with tumor analyses from linked families are in progress to identify the putative hereditary prostate cancer gene at 16q23.