Expression of the long non-coding RNA TCL6 is associated with clinical outcome in pediatric B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Abstract

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a clinically and biologically heterogeneous disease recurrently affected by chromosomal aberrations, including translocations, amplifications, and aneuploidies1. These aberrations have important implications for the diagnosis, sub-classification, prognosis and, overall, for making appropriate therapeutic decisions. The reciprocal translocation t(12;21)(p13;q22)[ETV6/RUNX1] is the most frequent chromosomal rearrangement in pediatric B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) with an incidence of ~25%2. This rearrangement, as well as high hyperdiploidy, is associated with a favorable outcome under current treatment protocols, but up to 20% of ETV6-RUNX1positive pediatric B-ALL patients experience a late disease relapse1,3.