Fingerprinting acute leukemia: DNA methylation profiling of B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia

In this issue of Cancer Discovery, Geng and colleagues report on their use of a combination of promoter cytosine methylation profiling with gene expression and ChIP sequencing to elucidate molecular signatures of adult B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia patient samples with BCR-ABL1, E2A-PBX1, and MLL rearrangements. The unique epigenetic and gene expression signatures of these clinically unfavorable B-ALL subtypes identify novel biomarkers and provide a strong rationale for repurposing existing therapies to treat these molecularly distinct diseases.