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Renee C Tschumper

Publications and source records attributed to Renee C Tschumper.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

Prospective evaluation of clonal evolution during long-term follow-up of patients with untreated early-stage chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

PURPOSE: Retrospective studies suggest cytogenetic abnormalities detected by interphase fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) can identify patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who will experience a more aggressive disease course. Other studies suggest that patients may acquire chromosome abnormalities during the course of their disease. There are minimal prospective data on the clinical utility of the widely used hierarchical FISH prognostic categories in patients with newly diagnosed early-stage CLL or the frequency of clonal evolution as determined by interphase FISH. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Between 1994 and 2002, we enrolled 159 patients with previously untreated CLL (83% Rai stage 0/I) on a prospective trial evaluating clonal evolution by FISH. Patients provided baseline and follow-up specimens for FISH testing during 2 to 12 years. RESULTS: Chromosomal abnormalities detected by FISH at study entry predicted overall survival. Eighteen patients experienced clonal evolution during follow-up. The rate of clonal evolution increased with duration of follow-up with only one occurrence in the first 2 years (n = 71; 1.4%) but 17 occurrences (n = 63; 27%) among patients tested after 5+ years. Clonal evolution occurred among 10% of ZAP-70-negative and 42% of ZAP-70-positive patients at 5+ years (P = .008). CONCLUSION: This clinical trial confirms prospectively that cytogenetic abnormalities detected by FISH can predict overall survival for CLL patients at the time of diagnosis, but also suggests that many patients acquire new abnormalities during the course of their disease. Patients with higher ZAP-70 expression may be more likely to experience such clonal evolution. These findings have important implications for both clinical management and trials of early treatment for patients with high-risk, early-stage CLL.

Adult↗

Gene-expression profiling of Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia reveals a phenotype more similar to chronic lymphocytic leukemia than multiple myeloma.

Waldenström macroglobulinemia (WM) is a B-cell malignancy characterized by the ability of the B-cell clone to differentiate into plasma cells. Although the clinical syndrome and the pathologic characteristics are well defined, little is known about its biology and controversy still exists regarding its cell of origin. In this gene-expression study, we compared the transcription profiles of WM with those of other malignant B cells including (chronic lymphocytic leukemia [CLL] and multiple myeloma [MM]) as well as normal cells (peripheral-blood B cells and bone marrow plasma cells). We found that WM has a homogenous gene expression regardless of 6q deletion status and clusters with CLL and normal B cells on unsupervised clustering with very similar expression profiles. Only a small gene set has expression profiles unique to WM compared to CLL and MM. The most significantly up-regulated gene is IL6 and the most significantly associated pathway for this set of genes is MAPK signaling. Thus, IL6 and its downstream signaling may be of biologic importance in WM. Further elucidation of the role of IL-6 in WM is warranted as this may offer a potential therapeutic avenue.

Antigens, CD↗

Protein expression profiling of CLL B cells using replicate off-line strong cation exchange chromatography and LC-MS/MS.

In this study we use replicate 2D-LC-MS/MS analyses of crude membranes from B cells derived from a patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) to examine the protein expression profile of CLL B cells. Protein identifications made by replicate 2D-LC-MS/MS analysis of tryptic peptides from detergent solubilized B cell membrane proteins, as well as replicate LC-MS/MS analysis of single off-line strong cation exchange chromatography (SCX) fractions, were analyzed. We show that despite the variance in SCX, capillary LC, and the data-dependent selection of precursor ions, an overlap of 64% between proteins identified in replicate runs was achieved for this system.

Antigens, CD↗

Chromosome anomalies detected by interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization: correlation with significant biological features of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.

Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) was used to detect 6q-, 11q-, +12, 13q-, 17p- and translocations involving 14q32 in interphase nuclei from blood and/or bone marrow from 113 patients with B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (B-CLL). A total of 87 patients (77%) had a FISH anomaly: 13q- x 1 was most frequent (64%) followed by 13q- x 2 (28%), +12 (25%), 11q- (15%), 17p- (8%) and 6q- (0%). FISH results for blood and bone marrow cells in 38 patients were similar. Purified CD5+/CD19+ cells from blood were studied in eight patients and results indicate that in some patients not all B cells have FISH anomalies. We used a defined set of hierarchical FISH risk categories to compare FISH results by stable versus progressive disease, age, sex, Rai stage, CD38+ expression and IgVH mutational status. Significant differences in FISH risk distributions were associated with Rai stage, disease status and CD38+, but not by age, sex or IgVH mutational status. To look for baseline factors associated with high-risk disease, multivariate analysis of age, sex, Rai stage, CD38+ and disease status versus FISH risk category was performed. Importantly, only CD38+ was significantly associated with high-risk FISH categories (+12, 11q- and 17p-) after adjustment for the effects of other variables.

ADP-ribosyl Cyclase↗

Identification of a global gene expression signature of B-chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

B-chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) is an adult-onset leukemia characterized by significant accumulation of apoptosis-resistant monoclonal B lymphocytes. In this study, we performed gene expression profiling on B cells obtained from 10 healthy age-matched individuals and CLL B cells from 38 B-CLL patients to identify key genetic differences between CLL and normal B cells. In addition, we leveraged recent independent studies to assess the reproducibility of our molecular B-CLL signature. We used a novel combination of several methods of data analysis including our own software and identified 70 previously unreported genes that differentiate leukemic cells from normal B cells, as well as confirmed recently reported B-CLL specific expression levels of an additional 10 genes. Importantly, many of these genes have previously been linked with other cancers, thus lending further support to their importance as candidate genes leading to B-CLL pathogenesis. We have also validated a subset of these genes using independent methodologies. Moreover, we show that our genes can be used to create a diagnostics signature that performs with perfect sensitivity and specificity in an independent cohort of 21 B-CLL and 20 normal subjects, thus strongly validating the informative nature of our set of genes. Finally, we identified a group of 31 genes that distinguish between low (Rai stage 0) and high (Rai stage 4) risk patients, suggesting that there may also be a gene expression signature that associates with disease progression.

ATP-Binding Cassette Transporters↗

Sharpening spots: correcting for bleedover in cDNA array images.

For cDNA array methods that depend on imaging of a radiolabel, we show that bleedover of one spot onto another, due to the gap between the array and the imaging media, can be a major problem. The images can be sharpened, however, using a blind convolution method based on the EM algorithm. The sharpened images look like a set of donuts, which concurs with our knowledge of the spotting process. Oversharpened images are actually useful as well, in locating the centers of each spot.

Algorithms↗