Screening for EVI1: ectopic expression absent in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients and cell lines

T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is a rare malignancy of precursor T-cells that predominantly affects children and adolescents, but can also arise in adults. This aggressive malignancy is typically characterized by high peripheral blood cell counts, frequent mediastinal masses, and central nervous system involvement and is associated with a poor prognosis. Although overall survival rates in pediatric T-ALL patients are 80% due to recent treatment successes, survival rates in adults under 60 years of age are only 30e40%. This number decreases to 10% in patients older than 60 years [1]. Leukemia, like many other types of cancer is caused by genomic alterations, that accumulate within the cellular DNA. The most frequent genetic changes include chromosomal abnormalities, such as inversions and translocations, that target different proto-oncogenes, leading to their activation and subsequent progression to leukemic cells [2]. Oncogenes such as EVI1 (ecotropic viral integration site 1,) play an important role in the pathogenesis of myeloid leukemia. Mouse models have shown that constitutive expression of EVI1 in bone marrow cells leads to severe pan