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A novel infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia cell line with MLL-AF5q31 fusion transcript

Leukemia volume 16, pages 2302–2308 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

Infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is characterized by the presence of the proB phenotype (CD10−/CD19+), poor prognosis and frequent rearrangement of the mixed lineage leukemia (MLL) gene. The most frequent rearrangement is t(4;11)(q21;q23), the role of whose product, the MLL-AF4 fusion transcript, has been extensively studied in leukemogenesis. In a cell line of infant leukemia with MLL rearrangement denoted KP-L-RY, panhandle PCR amplification of cDNA revealed the presence of a fusion transcript, MLL-AF5q31, indicating that AF5q31 is also a partner gene of MLL. In this fusion transcript the MLL exon 6 is fused in frame to the 5′ side of the putative transactivation domain of AF5q31. The AF5q31 protein is a member of the AF4/LAF4/FMR2-related family of proteins, which have been suggested to play a role in hematopoietic cell growth and differentiation. The MLL-AF5q31 fusion transcript, although probably rare, appears to be associated with the pathogenesis of infant ALL like MLL-AF4. Co-expression of HoxA9 and Meis1 genes in the KP-L-RY cell line indicated possible functional similarity between MLL-AF4 and MLL-AF5q31. Further understanding of the function of AF5q31 as well as the specific leukemogenic mechanism of MLL-AF5q31 awaits future studies.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Japan Infant Leukemia Study Group for providing the leukemic specimens and to Yasuko Hashimoto for her secretarial assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan

    T Imamura, A Morimoto, S Ikushima, S Hada, Y Tabata, T Yagi, S Hibi & T Sugimoto

  2. Department of Hygiene, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan

    N Kakazu & S Hada

  3. Department of Clinical Laboratory and Medicine, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan

    T Inaba

  4. Kyoto City Institute of Health and Environmental Sciences, Kyoto, Japan

    S Imashuku

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Imamura, T., Morimoto, A., Ikushima, S. et al. A novel infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia cell line with MLL-AF5q31 fusion transcript. Leukemia 16, 2302–2308 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2402665

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