Ras oncogene mutations are rare late stage events in chronic myelogenous
leukemia
A LeMaistre, MS Lee, M Talpaz, HM Kantarjian, EJ Freireich, AB Deisseroth, JM Trujillo and SA Stass
Division of Laboratory Medicine, University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer
Center, Houston 77030.
DNA from bone marrow and peripheral blood samples of 44 chronic myelogenous
leukemia (CML) patients were analyzed for the presence of mutations of
codons 12, 13 or 61 of the N-ras, H-ras, or K-ras genes. In seven patients,
samples were available from both their chronic phase and blast crisis. A
total of 29 samples examined were at chronic phase and 22 were at blast
crisis (eight lymphoid, eight myeloid, and six undifferentiated). No
mutations were identified in N-ras or H-ras. Two patients in myeloid blast
crisis had K-ras mutations, one patient at codon 12, the other at codon 13.
In the former patient the mutation was not present and the latter patient
was not tested in chronic phase. Our findings indicate ras mutations are an
infrequent late stage event in CML that occur in myeloid blast crisis.
Volume 73,
Issue 4,
pp. 889-891,
03/01/1989
Copyright © 1989 by The American Society of Hematology
