Dissection of Submicroscopical Aberrations and Clonal Evolution from Birth To Diagnosis and Relapse in a Childhood AML FLT3-ITD Positive Patient by RQ-PCR and SNP Array Analyses.

We have performed a combined Real Time Quantitative-PCR and single nucleotide polymorphisms array analyses for dissecting the clonal evolution in a childhood AML patient who experienced two relapses and for whom we had the availability of the cord blood (CB) sample. The patient was diagnosed at 6 years of age with an AML-M1 and showed normal karyotype and a FLT3-ITD mutation as a sole abnormality. She underwent autologous-BMT; however, 3.5 months later the patient relapsed, and 4 months after an allogeneic-BMT she suffered from a second relapse and died for disease progression. Highly sensitive (10⁻⁴) monitoring of FLT3-ITD was performed by patient-specific RQ-PCR, and showed a progressive decrease of minimal residual disease (MRD) during induction therapy. MRD was below the detection limit before auto-BMT, but the same FLT3-ITD clone re-emerged three months after auto-BMT, and preceded the clinical relapse. Thus, the same FLT3-ITD mutation was detected at the time of relapse, suggesting that the leukemic clone responsible for the first diagnosis was still present and could be potentially used as a marker for backtracking the leukemia into the CB. When tested by highly sensitive RQ-PCR, the DNA from CB resulted negative for the FLT3-ITD mutation. Although the relatively limited sensitivity of the technique might impair the interpretation, the FLT3-ITD negative result in CB is consistent with the hypothesis that FLT3-ITD mutations are secondary events, not sufficient by themselves to induce leukemia transformation in hematopoietic stem cells without a necessary primary event. With the aim to find additional submicroscopical genetic changes associated to the highly aggressive nature of the patient disease, we performed a genome wide SNP array analysis on the patient DNA through the clinical evolution of the disease, from birth to relapse. This new SNP array strategy is emerging as a powerful method to detect loss of heterozygosity (LOH) and/or copy number changes in a DNA sample with high resolution. The Affymetrix GeneChip® Mapping 10K platform has been used, which allows the scanning of more than 10.000 SNPs. SNP array analysis on DNA from the first relapse showed the deletion of the long arm of chromosome 9, a recurring chromosomal aberration in AML, and LOH on the whole chromosome 13 not associated with copy number changes. This latter has been confirmed by FISH, and it is consistent with uniparental isodisomy (UPD) as a responsible mechanism for the somatically acquired homozygosity of FLT3-ITD at 13q14. This mechanism is emerging as a frequent way of disease progression and represents a subsequent event to FLT3-ITD heterozygous mutation. The deletion of the wild type FLT3 allele has been confirmed by PCR. 10K SNP array analysis failed to reveal LOH or copy number changes in the diagnostic and in CB samples. These findings are compatible with a somatic post-natal origin of the FLT3-ITD positive AML subtype. Additional abnormalities can be responsible for the disease progression, via different mechanisms, including UPD. Other methods must be applied to find the primary event(s) giving rise to leukemia in association with FLT3-ITD mutation.