Identification and validation of biomarkers of IgV(H) mutation status in chronic lymphocytic leukemia using microfluidics quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction technology

J Mol Diagn. 2007 Sep;9(4):546-55. doi: 10.2353/jmoldx.2007.070001. Epub 2007 Aug 9.

Abstract

To develop a model incorporating relevant prognostic biomarkers for untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients, we re-analyzed the raw data from four published gene expression profiling studies. We selected 88 candidate biomarkers linked to immunoglobulin heavy-chain variable region gene (IgV(H)) mutation status and produced a reliable and reproducible microfluidics quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction array. We applied this array to a training set of 29 purified samples from previously untreated patients. In an unsupervised analysis, the samples clustered into two groups. Using a cutoff point of 2% homology to the germline IgV(H) sequence, one group contained all 14 IgV(H)-unmutated samples; the other contained all 15 mutated samples. We confirmed the differential expression of 37 of the candidate biomarkers using two-sample t-tests. Next, we constructed 16 different models to predict IgV(H) mutation status and evaluated their performance on an independent test set of 20 new samples. Nine models correctly classified 11 of 11 IgV(H)-mutated cases and eight of nine IgV(H)-unmutated cases, with some models using three to seven genes. Thus, we can classify cases with 95% accuracy based on the expression of as few as three genes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Biomarkers, Tumor / genetics*
  • Cluster Analysis
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Genetic Markers
  • Humans
  • Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains / genetics*
  • Immunoglobulin Variable Region / genetics*
  • Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Chronic, B-Cell / genetics*
  • Microfluidics / methods*
  • Models, Genetic
  • Mutation / genetics*
  • Polymerase Chain Reaction / methods*
  • Reproducibility of Results

Substances

  • Biomarkers, Tumor
  • Genetic Markers
  • Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains
  • Immunoglobulin Variable Region