Comparative expression study regarding leukemia samples with DDX41 mutation

Genetic expression profiling (GEP) has previously proven useful in B-ALL for identifying signatures of oncogenes, with the recognition of novel subgroups, as well as with outcome. Therefore, we adopted GEP of bonemarrow samples of B-ALL with t(9;22) to uncover the contribution of DDX41 to leukemogenesis. The germline mutations of DDX41, also known as DEAD box RNA helicase 41, have been found in about 1.5% of myeloid neoplasms (MNs). Development of MDS/AML is relatively common in germline DDX41 mutations. However, a variety of hematological malignancies (HMs) have been reported. We report a novel case of bi-alleleic DDX41 mutations in B-cell lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), with unusual location of DDX41 mutations. The gene expression profile (GEP) of Ph+ B-ALL with bi-alleleic DDX41 mutations showed heterogeneously transitional GEP and altered gene expression levels of genes involved in the process essential for red blood cells and myeloid cell differentiation were noted. We report that DDX41 mutations are unusual but can be an underlying event in Ph+B-ALL and screening DDX41 mutations can be also informative for patients awaiting for haploidentical stem cell transplantation and choosing the therapy. RNA was extracted from proband’s BM samples at initial diagnosis and compared the differentially expressed genes of Ph+B-ALLIKZF1+/DDX41dm with two cases of Ph+B-ALLIKZF1+/DDX41- in order to elucidate the role of DDX41 in leukemogenesis.