Oncogenes in the myelodysplastic syndrome

Abstract

The conversion of normal haemopoietic stem cells to myelodysplastic and then to leukaemic cells is marked by a number of events leading to progressive genetic changes in the abnormal clonal population. Cytogenetic evidence points to abnormalities at specific chromosomal locations, commonly involving chromosomes 5 and 7, where there are a particular concentration of genes directly involved in the regulation of haemopoietic proliferation and differentiation. These include GM-CSF, IL-3, M-CSF, erythropoietin and others. Other genes that may be involved in the preleukaemic process are so-called ‘oncogenes’ such as met on chromosome 7q and fms on 5q (which codes for the M-CSF receptor) that may be deleted or translocated. The ras gene family is activated by point mutations in a wide variety of malignant states, including myelodysplasia and acute myeloblastic leukaemia. At the present time we do not know the cause of these genetic lesions, their functional significance or the sequence in which they occur.