T-cell receptor alpha and delta gene assembly in B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia

The status of the TCR-alpha/delta genes in B-precursor ALL and the rearrangement patterns of these gene loci are discussed in this review. Although most of these rearrangements have been characterized, some still remain to be clarified. Almost all rearrangements of the TCRs in B-precursor ALL are incomplete and may reflect early recombinational steps during the TCR differentiation processes in normal T-lineage cells. In addition, even in T-cell malignancies, it is rarely possible to obtain clonal cell populations with TCR rearrangements arrested in very early recombinational steps. Therefore, studies of these as yet uncharacterized rearrangements may lead to the discovery of additional gene segments playing important roles in the TCR recombinational processes and may provide useful information for understanding the processes of T-cell differentiation.