Tissue, developmental, and tumor-specific expression of divergent transcripts in Wilms tumor.
 The Wilms tumor locus on chromosome 11p13 has been mapped to a region defined by overlapping, tumor-specific deletions.
 Complementary DNA clones representing transcripts of 2.5 (WIT-1) and 3.5 kb (WIT-2) mapping to this region were isolated from a kidney complementary DNA library.
 Expression of WIT-1 and WIT-2 was restricted to kidney and spleen.
 RNase protection revealed divergent transcription of WIT-1 and WIT-2, originating from a DNA region of less than 600 bp.
 Both transcripts were present at high concentrations in fetal kidney and at much reduced amounts in 5-year-old and adult kidneys.
 Eleven of 12 Wilms tumors classified as histopathologically heterogeneous exhibited absent or reduced expression of WIT-2, whereas only 4 of 14 histopathologically homogeneous tumors showed reduced expression.
 These data demonstrate a molecular basis for the pathogenetic heterogeneity in Wilms tumorigenesis.
