Clinical Relevance Of Alternatively Spliced Isoform Aml1-Eto9a In Adult Patients With T(8;21)(Q22; Q22.1) Acute Myeloid Leukemia (Aml): A Study Of The German-Austrian Aml Study Group (Amlsg)

Background: AML with t(8;21)(q22;q22.1) defines a distinct disease entity within the WHO category ‘AML with recurrent genetic abnormalities’ and results in the formation of the AML1-ETO (AE) fusion transcript. Recent data showed that alternative splicing generates a truncated variant of AE, namely AML1-ETO9a (AE9a), containing an additional exon 9a. Co-expression of AE and AE9a was shown to induce a more aggressive leukemic phenotype with a rapid onset of AML in a retrovirally transduced mouse model (Yan et al., Nat Med 2006). However, the clinical relevance of the alternatively spliced AE9a isoform in adult patients (pts) with t(8;21) AML is not well determined yet.