OBJECTIVE

The objective of our review is to highlight the significance of microsatellite hypervariation in diagnostics of hematologic malignancies.

METHODS

For the past few decades, extensive experiments in cancer research have explored all the possible pathways and a number of deleterious mutations that either make the tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) dysfunctional or cause the proto-oncogenes to behave abnormally by changing the cellular phenotype hence rendering disease. To prevent the deleterious effects of mutations and to protect the genomic integrity, our system possesses multiple repair mechanisms. DNA Mismatch Repair (MMR) and Direct Reversal of Damage (DRD) are two repair mechanisms which help in removal of faulty base pairs and alkyl adduct formation respectively to avoid long term effects of toxicity, tumorigenesis and mutagenesis. There are nine major MMR genes - MutS homolog (MSH2, MSH3, MSH4, MSH5, MSH6), MutL homolog (MLH1, MLH3), human post-meiotic segregation genes (PMS1, PMS2), and three major damage reversal genes - O-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase (MGMT), ABH2 and DEPC1.

RESULTS

Any malfunction in DNA repair machinery can cause microsatellite instability (MSI), a form of genomic abnormality with hyper mutable repeats that is directly associated with cancer. Microsatellites are short, repetitive sequences, non-randomly distributed and localized in 3'-UTR (Untranslated Region), introns, coding regions and promoters. Besides MSI, evidence on promoter hypermethylation of selected repair genes also points toward a prominent reason for cancer initiation and progression.

CONCLUSION

The presence of specific microsatellite marker hyper-mutability and consistent promoter hypermethylation in leukemia or lymphoma can be considered as a part of routine diagnostic test in clinical laboratories.