Acute myeloid leukemias with reciprocal rearrangements can be distinguished by specific gene expression profiles

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous group of genetically defined diseases. Their classification is important with regard to prognosis and treatment. We performed microarray analyses for gene expression profiling on bone marrow samples of 37 patients with newly diagnosed AML. All cases had either of the distinct subtypes AML M2 with t(8;21), AML M3 or M3v with t(15;17), or AML M4eo with inv(16). Diagnosis was established by cytomorphology, cytogenetics, fluorescence in situ hybridization, and reverse transcriptase–PCR in every sample. By using two different strategies for microarray data analyses, this study revealed a unique correlation between AML-specific cytogenetic aberrations and gene expression profiles.