We analyzed the CDR-III sequences of B cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (pre-B ALL) cells in 23 newly diagnosed and 10 relapsed patients, in order to elucidate the organization of CDR-III in B cell precursors.
We analyzed the CDR-III sequences of B cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (pre-B ALL) cells in 23 newly diagnosed and 10 relapsed patients, in order to elucidate the organization of CDR-III in B cell precursors.
Kaplan-Meier plot analysis revealed no significant difference between adult precursor B-ALL patients with monoclonal or oligoclonal IgH gene rearrangements and their disease-free survival rates.
Patients with pre-B (cytoplasmic mu) ALL were significantly more likely to lack CD34 on their blasts, while children with hyperdiploid ALL were more likely to be CD34+.
To determine the role of BCL-2 in the glucocorticoid-induced apoptosis of lymphocytes, we analyzed the effect of glucocorticoid on two human pre-B-cell lines which express different levels of BCL-2.
Taken together, these results document the close similarities between the genotypic features of B-lymphoid BC-CML and B-precursor ALL, not only in terms of the incidence of rearrangement but more relevantly with regard to the choice of regions involved in the recombinations.
DNA from 2 patients with pre-pre-B-ALL (CD10-) and 1 patient with common ALL contained rearranged Ig light chain (kappa in two, lambda in one case) in addition to rearranged IgH genes.
As the detection limit of the Southern blot technique is 2-5%, it might well be that small subclones remained undetected, implying that the frequency of subclone formation at the IgH gene level in precursor B-ALL is probably higher than 40%.
Although these percentages suggest the presence of a hierarchical order in IgH and Ig light chain (IgL) gene rearrangements during B-cell differentiation, no correlation was found between the immunophenotype of the precursor B-ALL and the arrangement patterns of their IgH and IgL genes.
We have used a more sensitive, polymerase chain reaction based immunoglobulin gene 'fingerprinting' approach in the analysis of B-cell clonality in eight patients with common ALL which were apparently monoclonal on the basis of Southern blot analysis of their IgH genes.
Thus rearrangement of the E2A gene is not restricted to cases with pre-B ALL but may also occur in acute leukemias with other immunological phenotypes.
These results suggest that (i) significant differences in the frequency of p53 mutations are present among subtypes of neoplasms derived from the same tissue; (ii) p53 may play a role in tumor progression in B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia; (iii) the presence of both p53 loss/inactivation and c-myc oncogene activation may be important in the pathogenesis of Burkitt lymphoma and its leukemic form L3-type B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
In addition to features characteristic of myeloma cells, we found evidence of the frequent expression by myeloma tumor cells of the pre-B-cell antigen CALLA (common acute lymphocytic leukemia antigen) (in specimens from 58 percent of patients) and of megakaryocytic (88 percent), myelomonocytic (65 percent), and erythroid (39 percent) surface markers.
The TPA-induced down-regulation of CALLA on REH cells was demonstrated with the aid of the following CD10 monoclonal antibodies: J-5, VIL-A1 and DGH-10-1-A9.
No major modulations in cell surface expression of CALLA on REH cells were observed after induction with 1,25-(OH)2 vitamin D3, retinoic acid, recombinant interferon (IFN) alpha 2a and recombinant interleukin 2.
The murine interleukin-3-dependent pre-B-lymphocyte cell line, Ba/F3, was made EPO-dependent by transfection of the human cDNA into the cells and selecting for growth in EPO-containing media.