Intrathymic origins of T-ALL

Leukemia cells are considered developmentally 'frozen', and their phenotype is thought to reflect their stage of origin. To gain insights into the cell population from which T-ALL arises, we compared by global gene expression profiling T-ALL samples (n = 10) to different stages of T cell development, following the order from early thymic progenitor (ETP), to triple negative (TN) TN2, to TN3, to TN4, to immature single positive (ISP), to double positive (DP) thymocytes. Comparison of global gene expression between T-ALL samples and various stages of T cell development.