Conditions of replication stress affect expression of all common fragile regions, including FRA3B (chromosome 3p14.2), FRA16D (16q23), FRA6E (6q26), FRA7G (7q31.2), and FRAXB (Xp22.3), and a number of cancer cell lines exhibit homozygous deletions in 2 or more common fragile regions.
We examined FRAXB and four other fragile sites (FRA3B, FRA7G, FRA7H, FRA16D), and several associated genes, for deletions and aberrant transcripts in a panel of cancer cell lines and primary tumors.