Expression Profiling of CD34+ Cells in Patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes: Involvement of Interferon-Stimulated Genes and Correlation to FAB Subtype and Karyotype.

The myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are a heterogeneous group of hematopoietic malignancies. We have used Affymetrix microarray technology to determine the gene expression profiles in CD34+ cells of 84 MDS patients (25 RA, 28 RARS and 31 RAEB) and 16 healthy controls. Twenty-five of 84 patients had a del(5q). CD34+ cells were isolated from bone marrow samples using MACS magnetic columns. Extracted total RNA was amplified using the Two-Cycle Target Labelling kit (Affymetrix) and samples were hybridized to Affymetrix U133 Plus2.0 chips (representing 39,000 human genes). Cell intensity calculation and scaling was performed using GeneChip Operating Software and data analysis using GeneSpring 7.3. The expression profiles of MDS CD34+ cells showed many similarities to reported interferon-γ induced gene expression in normal CD34+ cells. Indeed the two most up-regulated genes, IFIT1 and IFITM1, are interferon-stimulated genes. IFIT1 and IFITM1 were up-regulated by >2-fold in 58/84 and 53/84 MDS patients respectively. Genes down-regulated by >2-fold in the majority of MDS patients include the putative tumor suppressor gene Gravin/AKAP12, ARPP-21, CD24 and MME. The association of distinct gene expression profiles with specific FAB and cytogenetic groups was determined using data from 55 MDS patients as a training set. Hierarchical clustering performed using 457 significantly different genes between different FAB subtypes showed that MDS patients with RARS constitute a homogeneous group, while MDS patients with RA and RAEB show more overlap. CD34+ cells from patients with RARS showed up-regulation of mitochondrial-related genes, and in particular of those of heme synthesis (e.g. ALAS2). Statistical analysis showed that 889 probe-sets could discriminate MDS patients with a del(5q) from those without a del(5q). MDS patients with the del(5q) showed distinctive down-regulation of genes mapping to chromosome 5q, and up-regulation of the histone HIST1 gene cluster at chromosome 6p21 and of genes related to the actin cytoskeleton. In order to identify genes differentially expressed between early and advanced MDS, a comparison was made between the 18 patients with RA and the nine MDS patients with RAEBII. 762 significantly different probe sets were identified that could group together MDS patients with RAEBII. The most significant genes identified include CASP3 and FLT3, and represent potential prognostic markers or markers of disease progression. The remaining 29 MDS patients were used as a test set for class prediction using support vector machines. The FAB subtype was correctly predicted for 83% of the test samples. The presence or absence of a del(5q) was predicted correctly for 93% of the test samples. Finally, 94% of the test samples were predicted correctly as RA or RAEBII. This study provides important and new insights into the pathophysiology of MDS.