bcr/abl mRNA detection following bone marrow transplantation for chronic myelogenous leukemia

We have utilized the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to sensitively detect persistence of the chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) malignant clone and to study bcr/abl mRNA splicing patterns following bone marrow transplantation. Thirteen of sixteen patients displayed persistent malignant cells during post-BMT clinical remission. In two patients bcr/abl mRNA was detected 4 and 9 months prior to clinical relapse. In eleven of fourteen patients in continued clinical remission malignant cells were detected post-BMT. Ten of these eleven patients were also cytogenetically normal. Seven patients have lost all evidence of bcr/abl transcript, but only at 1-2 years posttransplant, while four have shown persistence of the bcr/abl transcript from 28 days to 3 years post-BMT and one has converted from an initially negative result at 1 year post-BMT to detectable levels of chimeric mRNA at 2 years. Thus, 8/9 patients tested at or before 6 months, 7/12 at 1 year, and 3/10 at 2 years showed persistent detectable CML cells. Intriguingly, mRNA splicing patterns changed in 5 patients following BMT, with complete loss of mRNA containing bcr exon 3 (n = 2) or new appearance of mRNA not containing bcr exon 3 (n = 2). A single patient transiently lost evidence of bcr exon 3 expression while persistently expressing the bcr exon 2/abl exon 2 splice. Our data suggest that the majority of patients harbor small numbers of malignant cells following transplantation, and that such persistence may not inevitably predict clinical relapse. Complete elimination of the malignant CML clone post-BMT may rely on immunological mechanisms (e.g., graft-vs-leukemia).