Genomic profiling in CLL and subtypes of del13q14

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a biologically heterogeneous illness with a variable clinical course. Loss of chromosomal material on chromosome 13 at cytoband 13q14 is the most frequent genetic abnormality in CLL, but the molecular aberrations underlying del13q14 in CLL remain incompletely characterized. We analyzed 171 CLL cases for LOH and sub-chromosomal copy loss on chromosome 13 in DNA from FACS-sorted CD19+ cells and paired buccal cells using the Affymetrix XbaI 50K SNP-array platform. The resulting high-resolution genomic maps, together with array-based measurements of expression levels of RNA in CLL cases with and without del13q14 and Q-PCR-based expression analysis of selected genes support the following conclusions: i) del13q14 is heterogeneous and composed of multiple subtypes with deletion of Rb or the miR15a/16 loci serving as anatomic landmarks, respectively ii) del13q14 type Ia deletions are relatively uniform in length and extend from breakpoints close to the miR15a/16 cluster to a newly identified telomeric breakpoint cluster at ~50.2-50.5 Mb physical position iii) LATS2 RNA levels are ~2.6-2.8-fold lower in cases with del13q14 type I that do not delete Rb as opposed to all other CLL cases and iv) ~15% of CLL cases display marked reductions in miR15a/16 expression often but not invariably associated with bi-allelic miR15a/16 loss. This data should aid future investigations into biological differences imparted on CLL by different del13q14 subtypes including investigations into LATS2 as one of the genes found deregulated as part of del13q14. Keywords: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia, CLL, gene expression comparison, del13q14, del13q The goal of this analysis is to detect probesets that are differentially expressed between CLL patients with wild type chromosome 13 and 13q-deleted samples. There are a total of 20 arrays.