Constitutive Function of the Ikaros Transcription Factor in Primary Leukemia Cells from Pediatric Newly Diagnosed High-Risk and Relapsed B-precursor ALL Patients

We examined the constitutive function of the Ikaros (IK) transcription factor in blast cells from pediatric B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BPL) patients using multiple assay platforms and bioinformatics tools. We found no evidence of diminished IK expression or function for primary cells from high-risk BPL patients including a Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)(+) subset. Relapse clones as well as very aggressive in vivo clonogenic leukemic B-cell precursors isolated from spleens of xenografted NOD/SCID mice that developed overt leukemia after inoculation with primary leukemic cells of patients with BPL invariably and abundantly expressed intact IK protein. These results demonstrate that a lost or diminished IK function is not a characteristic feature of leukemic cells in Ph(+) or Ph(-) high-risk BPL.