Schmidt C A, Neubauer A, Seeger K H, Rochlitz C F, Binder T, Oettle H, Henze G, Liu E T, Huhn D, Siegert W
Abteilung für Innere Medizin und Poliklinik, Universitätsklinikum Rudolf Virchow, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
Ann Hematol. 1994 Apr;68(4):171-4. doi: 10.1007/BF01834362.
Deletion of the short arm of chromosome 9p involving the beta 1-interferon (IFN) gene has been implicated in the process of malignant transformation in lymphomas and acute lymphoblastic leukemias. Since cytogenetic analysis is frequently unsuccessful in clinical samples, we used a recently described differential PCR technique to detect losses within the beta 1-IFN gene in 86 acute leukemias. Using differential PCR, no beta 1-IFN deletion was detected in 44 acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and eight control samples. However, five of 42 acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) probes (12%) exhibited loss of the beta 1-IFN gene (three common ALL, two T-ALL). Cytogenetic analysis was performed independently in three of these five cases and revealed abnormalities of chromosome 9p in two samples. Two of five T-ALL cases exhibited a loss within the beta 1-IFN gene, compared with 3/29 c-ALLs, suggesting a predominance of IFN gene loss in T-ALLs. These data indicate that PCR can be used for rapid detection of gene dosage phenomena in clinical leukemia samples.
