부산대학교 도서관

The most frequent oncogenic activation events characterized in childhood T acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) result in the transcriptional activation of genes coding for transcription factors. The main genes are TAL1/SCL, a member of the basic region helix-loop-helix gene family, and HOX11L2, a member of the homeobox-containing protein family. To gain insight into the pathogenesis of this type of hematologic malignancy, we analyzed 28 T-ALL samples. SIL-TAL1/SCL fusion was detected in 6 patients; expression of HOX11L2was observed in 6 patients and of HOX11in 3 patients. With one exception, these activations did not occur simultaneously in the same patients, and they allowed the subclassification of 50% of the patients.SIL-TAL1fusion was detected in association withHOX11expression in one patient and with a t(8;14) (q24;q11) in another. High expression of LYL1,LMO2, or TAL1was observed mainly in samples negative for HOX11L2expression. HOX11L1andHOX11expression were observed in one instance each, in the absence of detectable chromosomal abnormality of their respective loci, on chromosomes 2 and 10, respectively. HOX11L2expression was associated with a chromosome 5q abnormality, the location of theHOX11L2locus in each case tested. Finally, our data show that HOX11L2expression was a suitable marker for minimal residual disease follow-up and was significantly associated with relapse (P= .02).