RNA-seq of Hyperdiploid Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Few genetic drivers of children with hyperdiploid precursor B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have been identified to date. In an effort to detect novel genomic rearrangements that could be promoting leukemogenesis in this subset of patients, we sequenced ribosomal RNA-depleted transcriptomes isolated from 5 hyperdiploid acute lymphoblastic leukemia samples. In addition to looking for novel genomic rearrangements, we also sought to identify transcripts that could be created as a result of a novel posttranscriptional process. Surprisingly, we identified transcripts created as the result of exon circularization. The results of our studies are present in the paper "Circular RNAs Are the Predominant Transcript Isoform from Hundreds of Human Genes in Diverse Cell Types" published in PLoS ONE (PMID: 22319583).