Published online 19 May 2009
Haematologica, Vol 94, Issue 7, 1016-1019 doi:10.3324/haematol.2008.000299
Copyright © 2009 by Ferrata Storti Foundation
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Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Overexpression of CD123 correlates with the hyperdiploid genotype in acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Miroslav Djokic1,*, Elisabet Björklund1, Elisabeth Blennow2, Joanna Mazur3, Stefan Söderhäll4, Anna Porwit1

1 Department of Pathology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm;
2 Department of Molecular Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm;
3 Department of Child and Adolescent Health, Institute of Mother and Child, Warsaw, Poland and
4 Children’s Cancer Research Unit at Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden

Correspondence: Miroslav Djokic, Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, 200 Lothrop Street, G316, Pittsburgh, PA, 15090, USA. E-mail:djokicm{at}upmc.edu

We evaluated CD123 expression in 95 pediatric and 24 adult ALL patients and compared the results with the CD123 expression in normal B-cell precursors. Early B-cell precursors were negative while intermediate precursors and mature B cells showed weak CD123 expression. Leukemic blasts in 31% of precursor-B ALL samples exhibited strong expression of CD123, 61% had moderate CD123 expression and 8% were negative; 81.5% of ALL with hyperdiploid karyotype (≥ 52 chromosomes) showed strong CD123 overexpression. In contrast, cases with ETV6/RUNX1 rearrangement had weak CD123 expression. Our study suggests that overexpression of CD123 is an aberrant phenotype present in a subset of precursor-B ALL with hyperdiploid genotype, and represents an additional marker of good prognosis in pediatric precursor-B ALL. Moreover, aberrant CD123 expression in ALL is a good marker for monitoring of minimal residual disease.

Key words: overexpression, CD123, hyperdiploid genotype.