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T-Cell Receptor β Chain Gene Rearrangement in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Always Occurs at the Allele That Contains the Undermethylated Jβ1 Region¹

First Department of Internal Medicine, Tokyo Medical College, Tokyo [J. H. O., K. O., K. K., T. T., K. T.]; Department of Pediatrics, Yamanashi Medical School, Yamanashi[S. N.]; and First Department of Internal Medicine, Fukuoka University, Fukuoka [N. K.], Japan

² To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at First Department of Internal Medicine, Tokyo Medical College, 6-7-1 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160, Japan.

The epigenetic phenomenon could play a role in the interaction between chromatin and DNA-binding enzymes, allowing us to consider an association between the phenomenon and gene rearrangement. The correlation between methylation status and rearrangement of the T-cell receptor (TCR) β chain gene in leukemia cells obtained from patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) was examined. All of the AML patients with a TCR-β rearrangement had hypomethylated CCGG sequences within the Jβ1 region on the rearranged allele, while the germline allele had completely methylated CC^meGG sequence in this region, indicating a strong association between hypomethylation status and rearrangement of the TCR β chain gene. In the DNA from AML patients with or without a TCR-β rearrangement, the Cβ2 region contained completely methylated CC^meGG sequences, even though they express T-cell-associated antigens, including CD7; this pattern is quite different from that observed in T-cell neoplasias. Moreover, some AML patients showed a TCR-β rearrangement without the presence of immunoglobulin heavy-chain gene rearrangement, suggesting that TCR β chain gene involvement in AML is required for unknown factors other than common recombinase activity.

¹ Supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture (04671536).

³ Present address: Walther Oncology Center, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5121.

The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

Received 5/21/92. Accepted 9/18/92.

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