Caligaris-Cappio Federico, Ghia Paolo
Department of Oncology, Lymphoma Unit, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele and Istituto Scientifico San Raffaele, Via Olgettina 58, 20132 Milano, Italy.
Best Pract Res Clin Haematol. 2007 Sep;20(3):385-97. doi: 10.1016/j.beha.2007.02.005.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is characterized by the monoclonal expansion of small mature-looking B cells that accumulate in the blood, marrow, and lymphoid organs, and have a remarkable phenotypic homogeneity. By definition, CLL cells co-express CD5 and CD23 with faint to undetectable amounts of monoclonal surface immunoglobulins (sIg). The concept of phenotypic homogeneity has been reinforced by gene expression profiling data, which suggest that the pathogenesis of CLL has to be associated with a fairly common mechanism of transformation. In recent years the biology of CLL has been enriched by an unprecedented flurry of new observations that are leading to a better understanding of the natural history of the disease. Still CLL cells have so far defied any attempt to satisfactorily answer the simple time-honored question of what their cell of origin is. It is the purpose of this review to discuss the features a cell must possess to be considered with reasonable approximation the normal counterpart of a CLL B cell.
慢性淋巴细胞白血病（CLL）的特征是外观成熟的小B细胞单克隆扩增，这些细胞积聚在血液、骨髓和淋巴器官中，且具有显著的表型同质性。根据定义，CLL细胞共表达CD5和CD23，单克隆表面免疫球蛋白（sIg）含量微弱至无法检测。基因表达谱数据强化了表型同质性的概念，这表明CLL的发病机制必定与一种相当常见的转化机制相关。近年来，CLL的生物学特性因一系列前所未有的新观察结果而更加丰富，这些观察结果使人们对该疾病的自然史有了更好的理解。然而，迄今为止，CLL细胞仍无法让人们对其起源细胞这一由来已久的简单问题给出令人满意的答案。本综述的目的是讨论一个细胞必须具备哪些特征，才能被合理地视为CLL B细胞的正常对应物。
