Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is a subtype of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) characterized by the reciprocal translocation t(15;17)(q22;q12) resulting in the fusion gene PML-RARA and an oncoprotein that impairs myeloid differentiation (Arber et al., 2008; de The et al., 1990; Rowley et al., 1977). Morphological and clinical characteristics include hypergranular leukemic promyelocytes, Auer r...

We have previously shown that a specific promyelocytic leukemia-retinoic acid receptor alpha (PML-RARA) DNA vaccine combined with all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) increases the number of long term survivors with enhanced immune responses in a mouse model of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). This study reports the efficacy of a non-specific DNA vaccine, pVAX14Flipper (pVAX14), in both APL and hi...

Therapy-related acute promyelocytic leukemia (t-APL) with t(15;17) translocation is a well-recognized complication of cancer treatment with agents targeting topoisomerase II. However, cases are emerging after mitoxantrone therapy for multiple sclerosis (MS). Analysis of 12 cases of mitoxantrone-related t-APL in MS patients revealed an altered distribution of chromosome 15 breakpoints versus de ...

We report the first dry-reagent, disposable, dipstick test for molecular screening of seven chromosomal translocations associated with acute and chronic leukemia. The dipstick assay offers about 10 times higher detectability than agarose gel electrophoresis and, contrary to electrophoresis, allows confirmation of the sequence of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) product by hybridization withi...

We describe the case of a patient presenting with several weeks of symptoms related to pancytopenia associated with a maturation arrest at the late promyelocyte/early myelocyte stage of granulocyte differentiation. A diagnosis of acute promyelocytic leukemia was considered, but the morphologic features were atypical for this entity and conventional tests for the presence of a PML-RARA fusion ge...

Fusion proteins present in leukemic cells frequently contain a new amino acid at the fusion point. We tested whether a peptide (BCR1/25) encompassing the fusion region of the hybrid molecule pml/RARa, which is selectively expressed by acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) cells, can be recognized by human T lymphocytes in vitro. CD4+ lymphocytes, at both polyclonal and clonal level, recognized pep...

We previously showed the involvement of retinoic acid receptor a (RARa) in the induction of tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA) synthesis by RA in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). However, the rather slow onset of this induction of t-PA synthesis suggested an indirect role of RARa. Here, we show that the protein synthesis inhibitor, cycloheximide completely blocks the induc...

From the introduction of all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) to the recent development of arsenic trioxide (ATO) treatment, acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) characterized by the presence of retinoic acid receptor alpha (RARA) fusion has been transformed from a highly fatal cancer to a highly curable disease. In spite of this unprecedented success, there are still a significant number of high-risk ...

Acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APML) is characterised by the t(15;17)(q22;q21), that results in the fusion of the promyelocytic leukaemia (PML) gene at 15q22 with the retinoic acid α-receptor (RARA) gene at 17q21. The current case report describes a 13-year-old male with APML, who was negative for PML/RARA fusion signal but reported to have an atypical translocation t(16;17). To the best of our...