CASE PRESENTATION: Here we report a 16-year-old Malaysian Chinese boy, a product of a non-consanguineous marriage, who presented with intellectual disability, facial dysmorphism, high arched palate, congenital talipes equinovarus (clubfoot), congenital scoliosis, congenital heart defect, and behavioral problems. A routine chromosome analysis on 20 metaphase cells showed a normal 46, XY G-banded karyotype. Array-based comparative genomic hybridization was performed using a commercially available 244 K 60-mer oligonucleotide microarray slide according to the manufacturer's protocol. This platform allows genome-wide survey and molecular profiling of genomic aberrations with an average resolution of about 10 kB. In addition, multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification analysis was carried out using SALSA MLPA kit P320 Telomere-13 to confirm the array-based comparative genomic hybridization finding. Array-based comparative genomic hybridization analysis revealed a 7.3 MB terminal deletion involving chromosome band 18q22.3-qter. This finding was confirmed by multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification, where a deletion of ten probes mapping to the 18q22.3-q23 region was detected, and further multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification analysis on his parents showed the deletion to be de novo.
CONCLUSION: The findings from this study expand the phenotypic spectrum of the 18q- deletion syndrome by presenting a variation of typical 18q- deletion syndrome features to the literature. In addition, this case report demonstrated the ability of the molecular karyotyping method, such as array-based comparative genomic hybridization, to assist in the diagnosis of cases with a highly variable phenotype and variable aberrations, such as 18q- deletion syndrome.
RESULT: A total of 24 and 32 somatic variants were identified in presentation and relapse samples respectively with an average of 4.0 variants per patient at presentation and 5.3 variants per patient at relapse, with SNVs being more frequent than indels at both disease stages. All patients have somatic variants in at least one gene that is frequently mutated in AML at both disease presentation and relapse, with most of these variants are classic AML and recurrent hotspot mutations including NPM1 p.W288fs, FLT3-ITD, NRAS p.G12D and IDH2 p.R140Q. In addition, we found two distinct clonal evolution patterns of relapse: (1) a leukemic clone at disease presentation acquires additional mutations and evolves into the relapse clone after the chemotherapy; (2) a leukemic clone at disease presentation persists at relapse without the addition of novel somatic mutations.
CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study suggest that the relapse-initiating clones may pre-exist prior to therapy, which harbor or acquire mutations that confer selective advantage during chemotherapy, resulting in clonal expansion and eventually leading to relapse.
RESULTS: In total, 12 different BCR::ABL1 KD mutations were identified by SS in 22.6% (19/84) of patients who were resistant to TKI treatment. Interestingly, NGS analysis of the same patient group revealed an additional four different BCR::ABL1 KD mutations in 27.4% (23/84) of patients. These mutations are M244V, A344V, E355A, and E459K with variant read frequency below 15%. No mutation was detected in 18 patients with optimal response to TKI therapy. Resistance to TKIs is associated with the acquisition of additional mutations in BCR::ABL1 KD after treatment with TKIs. Additionally, the use of NGS is advised for accurately determining the mutation status of BCR::ABL1 KD, particularly in cases where the allele frequency is low, and for identifying mutations across multiple exons simultaneously. Therefore, the utilization of NGS as a diagnostic platform for this test is very promising to guide therapeutic decision-making.
RESULTS: A total of 36 pathogenic CNVs (26 gains, 10 losses) were identified in 19 (28.4%) patients which harbor genes related to the development of ALL. The genes include the MLLT3 (9p21.3), ETV6 (12p13.2), RUNX1 (21q22.12), ERG (21q22.2) and DMD (Xp21.1). On the other hand, a total of 46 variants of uncertain significance (VUS) was observed in 34 (50.7%) patients.
CONCLUSIONS: Our study indicates that array-CGH is able to identify and characterize the CNVs responsible for the pathogenesis of childhood ALL. However, further studies are required to determine the pathogenic implications of VUS in the development of childhood ALL.