Immunoglobulin light chain gene rearrangements in precursor-B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia: characteristics and applicability for the detection of minimal residual disease

Department of Immunology, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. v.h.j.vandervelden@erasmusmc.nl

We analyzed the frequency and characteristics of Vk-Jk and Vlambda-Jlambda rearrangements inpatients with precursor-B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and evaluated the applicability of these rearrangements as targets for minimal residual disease (MRD) detection. Using the BIOMED-2 primer sets, Vk-Jk and Vlambda-Jlambda rearrangements were detected in 30% and 17% of patients, respectively. Vk-Jk rearrangements were particularly frequent in common-ALL, children between 5-10 years, and TEL-AML1-positive patients. Vk-Jk and Vlambda-Jlambda rearrangements showed a good stability between diagnosis and relapse and reached good sensitivities in real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis. Our data show that Vk-Jk and Vlambda-Jlambda rearrangements can be successfully applied for MRD detection in a subset of patients with precursor-B-ALL.