Blood. 2002 Mar 15;99(6):2262-4. 
Comment in:

• Blood. 2002 Aug 1;100(3):1097-8; author reply 1098-9.
• Blood. 2003 Aug 1;102(3):1145-6.

Somatically mutated Ig V(H)3-21 genes characterize a new subset of chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Tobin G, Thunberg U, Johnson A, Thorn I, Soderberg O, Hultdin M, Botling J, Enblad G, Sallstrom J, Sundstrom C, Roos G, Rosenquist R.
Department of Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University, SE-751 85 Uppsala, Sweden.

Recent studies on the immunoglobulin variable heavy chain (IgV(H)) genes have revealed that B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) consists of at least 2 clinical entities with either somatically mutated or unmutated V(H) genes. We have analyzed the V(H) gene mutation status and V(H) gene usage in 119 B-CLL cases and correlated them to overall survival. A novel finding was the preferential use of the V(H)3-21 gene in mutated cases, whereas biased V(H)1-69 gene usage was found in unmutated cases as previously reported. Interestingly, the subset of mutated cases using the V(H)3-21 gene displayed distinctive genotypic/phenotypic characteristics with shorter average length of the complementarity determining region 3 and clonal expression of lambda light chains. In addition, this mutated subset showed significantly shorter survival than other mutated cases and a similar clinical course to unmutated cases. We therefore suggest that B-CLL cases with mutated V(H)3-21 genes may constitute an additional entity of B-CLL.

PMID: 11877310 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]