The loss of specific chromosomal loci in cancers is indicative that the region contains a tumour suppressor gene. Allelic loss of chromosome 17p has been shown to occur in a wide variety of cancers such as lung, breast, colon, ovary and brain and, until recently, the gene believed to be involved was the p53 tumour suppressor gene. However, more recent studies have shown that the area deleted in some of these tumours does not include the structural gene for p53. For this reason it has been proposed that a tumour suppressor gene lying distal to p53 on chromosome 17p is the gene deleted in these cancers. As chromosome 17p has been shown to be deleted in approximately 75% of colorectal cancers, we set out to determine whether the target gene of these deletions was the structural gene for p53. Allelic loss was assessed by using restriction fragment length polymorphisms in 52 tumours. Deletions distal to p53 on chromosome 17p were assessed using the probe YNZ22.1 and allelic loss of p53 was assessed using probe pR4-2, a cDNA probe specific for the p53 gene. Out of the 21 tumours informative for both probes, 3 cases showed no allelic deletion of the chromosome 17p, 2 cases showed allelic deletion not encompassing the p53 gene and 16 cases (89%) showed allelic deletion including the p53 gene.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)