Frequency of BCR-ABL Fusion Transcripts in Iranian Azeri Turkish patients with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

Background: The Philadelphia chromosome (Ph) characterized by t (9; 22) (q34; q11.2) is a reciprocal translocation giving rise to a chimeric BCR-ABL fusion gene. Incidence of Ph chromosome is over 98% in Patients with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) and around 20% in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The finding of this fusion gene is essential for diagnosis of CML by detection of various fusion transcripts such as b2a2 and b3a2 transcripts and Ph positive ALL by detection of e1a2 (p190) transcripts. We conducted this study to determine the frequency of various BCR-ABL fusion transcripts in the west Azerbaijani patients with CML. Methods: RNA was isolated from peripheral blood samples by standard protocols. BCR-ABL fusion gene detection was carried out with one-step multiplex RT-PCR in 41 west Azerbaijani patients with CML. Results: Among patients with CML, the frequencies of b2a2 and b3a2 transcripts were 52.5% and 12.5%, respectively. Co-expression of b3a2 and b2a2 transcripts was found in 12.5% of the patients.  Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that multiplex RT-PCR is a suitable technique to identify the typical BCR-ABL fusion transcripts in the west Azerbaijani patients with CML. Atypical transcripts possibly run away while using multiplex PCR.