Relation between CD38 expression andV_H mutation status in the CLL cohort.

The proportion of CD38⁺ CLL cells is shown on the y-axes.V_H mutation status is shown on the x-axes as percentage value of homology to the nearest germline gene (A) and according to the most important subgroups (B). Low CD38 expression levels correlated with high V_H mutation rates, and high CD38 expression levels correlated with lowV_H mutation rates. However, in at least 34% of patients, depending on the cut-off value used (see “Results” and Table 1 for details), the CD38 expression level failed to predict theV_H mutation status.