Absence of late-replicating X-chromosome in a female patient with acute myeloid leukemia and the 8;21 translocation.

Autoradiography was used to demonstrate that the x-chromosome of the 45,X,-X,t(8;21) stemline of a female patient with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) was the active X-chromosome. This suggested that in patients housing AML with the 8;21 translocation, the loss of the inactive X-chromosome in females and of the Y in males (which is known to occur in nearly half of the patients) entails selective advantage to the stemline.