Genomic analysis in lymphoid leukemias.

Abstract

The introduction of microarray analysis represents a revolution in the scientific field, allowing to investigate thousand of genes in a single experiment. Important biological insights have been revealed by this technique in several tumors: in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), these studies have allowed to identify specific patterns associated with known molecular abnormalities, as well as with phenotypic characteristics and with different prognostic features. In chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), this approach has helped to dissect that this disease is a single entity with distinct variants that are characterized by a diverse IgVH mutational status, that can be discriminated by a small set of genes, has allowed to define a similarity between this disease and memory B cells and has also led to hypothesize that CLL cells from IgVH unmutated patients may be continuously stimulated in vivo, thus showing a gene profile that is reminiscent of the B cell receptor. In multiple myeloma (MM), gene expression profiles has provided insights into the disease and has offered the opportunity of stratifying patients according to the degree of aggressiveness of the disease. Current efforts are directed to the identification of patterns that may distinguish patients with a different outcome, thus providing useful prognostic information and to design experiments that may allow the identification of new therapeutic targets.