Flow cytometric analysis of Thy-1 expression in myelodysplastic syndrome

We analyzed the expression of Thy-1 (CD90) antigen on CD34+ bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMNC) obtained from 25 patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) by two-color flow cytometry. Five of nine patients (55.6%) with refractory anemia with excess of blasts (RAEB) and two of 16 (12.5%) with RAEB in transformation (RAEB-t) showed more than 20% of Thy-1 expression of their CD34+ BMMNC. Regarding chromosomal abnormalities, -5/5q- or -18 might be correlated with the expression of Thy-1 on CD34+ BMMNC in MDS. Nine patients were analyzed twice, once before and once after leukemic transformation and showed no significant change in Thy-1 expression. These results show that Thy-1 was expressed on CD34+ BMMNC in certain patients with MDS before leukemic transformation and that it was maintained during the disease progression. In contrast, expression of Thy-1 did not seem essential to the leukemic transformation in MDS though the patients with high Thy-1 expression might have poorer prognosis compared with those with low Thy-1 expression.