Rearrangement and overexpression of the PRAD1/cyclin D1 oncogene, a cell cycle regulator, have been implicated in the pathogenesis of a subset of parathyroid adenomas. Recently, two cell cycle regulators that inhibit the cyclin D1-associated kinases cdk4 and cdk6 have been identified: p16 and p15, the products of the INK4A (also known as CDKN2, MTS1) and INK4B (also known as MTS2) putative tumor suppressor genes located on 9p21. Because inactivation of the p16 or p15 genes might be expected to result in oncogenic consequences similar to those from cyclin D1 overexpression, we examined 25 parathyroid adenomas for 1) allelic loss of polymorphic DNA loci on chromosome arm 9p, 2) homozygous deletions of the p16 and p15 genes by Southern blot analysis, and 3) mutations of the p16 and p15 genes by single strand conformational polymorphism analysis. Heterozygous allelic loss at 9p was observed in 4 of 25 adenomas (16%); their smallest shared region of deletion was 9p21-pter, which includes both the p16 and p15 genes. However, single strand conformational polymorphism analysis of all 3 exons of the p16 gene and both exons of the p15 gene failed to demonstrate mutation in any of the 25 cases, and homozygous deletions of the p16 and p15 genes, which are present in some human cancers, were not found in any parathyroid tumors. These observations indicate that inactivating mutations or homozygous deletions of the p16 and p15 genes occur uncommonly, if ever, in parathyroid adenomas; however, loss of a different tumor suppressor gene (or genes) on 9p appears to contribute to the pathogenesis of a significant percentage of these tumors.