LOH/somatic inactivation/biallelic inactivation?

[Mike72]

Hi (first post! )

I'm having trouble defining these terms, as different sources have different definitions, which can be confusing Are they all interchangeable or separate? If you're heterozygous, does somatic/biallelic inactivation not always lead to loss of heterozygosity?

e.g. "The tumour suppressor gene p53 is frequently inactivated in gastric carcinoma by loss of heterozygosity (LOH), missense mutations and frame shift deletions" (http://www.biology-online.org/articles/ ... nesis.html) - are there specific mutations for LOH?

Many thanks for any help!