Methods and Clinical Relevance of Terminal Deoxynucleotidyl Transferase Determination in Leukemic Cells

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Abstract
Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT) is a unique DNA Polymerase which is only found in immature cells of lymphoid lineage (pre-T/pre-B). Because of this restricted distribution of TdT, biochemical and immunofluorescence techniques have been employed to determine the distribution of TdT phenotypes in human leukemias and lymphomas, showing high levels of TdT in ∼95 % of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and lymphoblastic lymphoma (LBL), ∼50% of patients with acute undifferentiated leukemia (AUL), ∼10% of patients with acute nonlymphoblastic leukemia (ANLL), and ∼30% of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and other myeloproliferative (MPS) or myelodysplastic (MDS) syndromes in blast crisis. High levels of TdT activity are associated with a clinical response to remission inducing therapy with vincristine and prednisone in a high proportion of patients (50%–90%), irrespective of clinical and morphologic diagnosis. Preliminary studies furthermore suggest that TdT might serve as a sensitive indicator of subclinical disease in ALL in complete remission.

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