Absence of bcr/abl gene in single hemopoietic progenitors in some patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia

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Abstract
CD34'DR - and CD34‘DR’ cells were isolated from the marrow mononuclear cells of five patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) carrying the Philadelphia (Ph) chromo - some. Analysis of bcr/abl hybrid mRNA in indi - vidual colonies from a single cell using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) demonstrated the presence o r absence of the hybrid mRNA. For patient 1 in the chronic phase of CML, the hybrid mRNA was detected in all colonies derived from CD34+DR+ and CD34'DR - hemopoietic progenitors. In contrast, for patient 2 in the chronic phase of CML, the mRNA was detected in all individual colonies from CD34+DR+ progenitors but not in any from CD34+DR - prog - enitors. For patient 3 in the chronic phase of CML, the mRNA was detected in all individual colonies from CD34‘DR’ but in only some of the colonies from CD34'DR - progenitors. For patients 4 and 5 in the acute crisis of CML, the mRNA was found in a portion of colonies from CD34+DR+ and CD34'DR - progenitors. These results indicated that normal clones can persist in CD34'DR - prog - enitors in some patients with CML, even when chromosome analysis detects the Ph chromosome in all metaphases of bone marrow cells.

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