¹Departments of Pathology and Medical Genetics, Haartman Institute and Helsinki University Central Hospital, University of Helsinki, Finland

²Division of Hematology-Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation, Hospital for Children and Adolescents, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland

³Laboratory of Computer and Information Science, Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland

Correspondence to: S Knuutila, Department of Medical Genetics, Haartman Institute, PO Box 21, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Fax: +358-9-191 26788

Several specific cytogenetic changes are known to be associated with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), and many of them are important prognostic factors for the disease. Little is known, however, about the changes in gene expression in ALL. Recently, the development of cDNA array technology has enabled the study of expression of hundreds to thousands of genes in a single experiment. We used the cDNA array method to study the gene expression profiles of 17 children with precursor-B ALL. Normal B cells from adenoids were used as reference material. We discuss the 25 genes that were most over-expressed compared to the reference. These included four genes that are normally expressed only in the myeloid lineages of the hematopoietic cells: RNASE2, GCSFR, PRTN3 and CLC. We also detected over-expression of S100A12, expressed in nerve cells but also in myeloid cells. In addition to the myeloid-specific genes, other over-expressed genes included AML1, LCP2 and FGF6. In conclusion, our study revealed novel information about gene expression in childhood ALL. The data obtained may contribute to further studies of the pathogenesis and prognosis of childhood ALL.

Leukemia (2002) 16, 2213-2221. doi:10.1038/sj.leu.2402685

acute lymphoblastic leukemia; gene expression; myeloid-specific genes; cDNA array