GATA-2 L359V Mutation Is Solely Associated with Cml progression but Not Other Hematological Malignancies.

Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) is a hematopoietic stem cell disease with distinct biology and clinical features. According to clinical and biology process, CML can be divided as two different phase: the initial chronic phase (CP) and progression phase including accelerated phase (AP) followed by blast crisis (BC). In a previous study, we have identified the transcription factor GATA-2 L359V mutation in CML BC patients but not CP and its pivotal role in CML progression (PNAS 2008 105:2076–2081). Here, we continued to explore the occurrence of GATA-2 L359V mutation in other hematological malignancies using Mass-ARRAY assay and sequence analysis. A total of 652 patient samples were included in our study. These patients were referred to 270 Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) including M1–M7, 30 Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS), 50 Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), 12 Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), 40 CML CP and 250 BCR/ABL negative Myeloproliferative Disorder (MPD) patients. 5 ml bone marrow sample before therapy was collected with informed consent and genomic DNA was isolated. The diagnosis of AML, ALL, CML, CLL, MDS and MPD was established according to the 2001 WHO diagnostic criteria. In addition, 8 samples of CML BC harboring GATA-2 L359V were supplied into our study as positive control and 100 peripheral blood samples of healthy adult as normal control. As a result, no L359V mutation was detected in AML, ALL, MDS, CLL, BCR/ABL negative MPD and CML CP. Our data strongly suggested that GATA-2 L359V is solely associated with CML progression but not other hematological malignancies. Therefore, we favored this idea, i.e., BCR/ABL underlies the pathogenic basis of CML CP; However, subsequent genomic instabilities contribute to mutation of key transcription factor such as GATA-2 which ultimately trigger the blastic transformation of CML.