gene expression analyses of pediatric lymphoblastic lymphomas and leukemias

T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) and lymphoma (T-LBL) share common morphologic and immunophenotypic features and are treated with similar therapeutic approaches. Nonetheless, they show distinct clinical presentations suggesting that they may represent two different biological entities. In order to investigate T-LBL and T-ALL biological characteristics we used transcriptional profiling approache. Genome-wide gene expression profiling, performed on 20 T-LBL and 10 T-ALL diagnostic specimens, showed that the two malignancies shared a large fraction of their transcriptional profile while a subset of genes appeared to be differentially expressed in T-LBL versus T-ALL. This gene signature included genes involved in chemotactic responses and angiogenesis which might play a role in the different tumor cell localization suggesting that T-LBL and T-ALL could be two distinct diseases with unique transcriptional characteristics.

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