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Significantly shorter telomeres in T‐cells of patients with ZAP‐70 + /CD38 + chronic lymphocytic leukaemia
Author(s) -
Röth Alexander,
De Beer Dirk,
Nückel Holger,
Sellmann Ludger,
Dührsen Ulrich,
Dürig Jan,
Baerlocher Gabriela M.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
british journal of haematology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.907
H-Index - 186
eISSN - 1365-2141
pISSN - 0007-1048
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2141.2008.07363.x
Subject(s) - cd38 , telomere , percentile , chronic lymphocytic leukemia , medicine , immunology , biology , leukemia , genetics , gene , mathematics , stem cell , statistics , cd34
Summary In contrast to other B‐cell neoplasias, chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) is characterized by increased non‐leukaemic T‐cells. In order to assess their replicative history, telomere length was analyzed in subsets of leucocytes from CLL patients. Naive and memory T‐cells from ZAP‐70 + /CD38 + patients exhibited significantly shorter average telomere lengths than ZAP‐70 − /CD38 − patients. Compared to the age‐related percentiles of telomere length values from healthy individuals practically all values of the naive and memory T‐cells from the ZAP‐70 + /CD38 + CLL patients fell below the 50th percentile. This indicated an extensive expansion and a role for T‐cells in ZAP‐70 + /CD38 + CLL patients.