[Activation of ras oncogene in myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myelogenous leukemia].
N-ras oncogenes activated by point mutation have been frequently detected in various types of human leukemias. Analysis of a large number of leukemias revealed that activated N-ras oncogenes were observed preferentially in AML, AMoL, T-ALL and Null-ALL but rarely in CML and B-cell leukemia. These results suggest that N-ras oncogene plays an important role in human leukemogenesis. Activated N-ras oncogenes were also detected in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) that is considered to be a preleukemic disease. MDS patients bearing an activated N-ras oncogene frequently showed leukemic progression of the disease, suggesting that an activated N-ras oncogene can be a critical factor for prognosis of MDS patients. Thus, detection of an activated N-ras oncogene is useful for diagnosis, prognostic evaluation and therapeutic decision. Recently, we demonstrated that detection of the minimal residual disease by analysis of N-ras oncogene can lead to improvement of the remission rate in leukemias. Moreover, we made it possible to screen N-ras oncogene by a sensitive non-radioactive method. Our research procedure seems to be a good model for clinical application of the molecular biological technique.
Hirai
H
H
Third Dept. of Internal Medicine Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo.
Hirano
N
N
Yazaki
Y
Y
D001483:Base Sequence; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D011905:Genes, ras; D006801:Humans; D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009190:Myelodysplastic Syndromes / Q000235:genetics*; D011379:Prognosis