RESEARCH ARTICLE Transcriptome Profiling of Pediatric Core Binding Factor AML Chih-Hao Hsu1, Cu Nguyen1, Chunhua Yan1, Rhonda E. Ries2, Qing-Rong Chen1, Ying Hu1, Fabiana Ostronoff2, Derek L. Stirewalt2, George Komatsoulis1, Shawn Levy3, Daoud Meerzaman1☯, Soheil Meshinchi2☯* 1 Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, 20850, United States of America, 2 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, United States of America, 3 Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology, Huntsville, AL, United States of America ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. *
[email protected] Abstract The t(8;21) and Inv(16) translocations disrupt the normal function of core binding factors alpha (CBFA) and beta (CBFB), respectively. These translocations represent two of the most com- OPEN ACCESS mon genomic abnormalities in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients, occurring in approxi- Citation: Hsu C-H, Nguyen C, Yan C, Ries RE, Chen mately 25% pediatric and 15% of adult with this malignancy. Both translocations are Q-R, Hu Y, et al. (2015) Transcriptome Profiling of associated with favorable clinical outcomes after intensive chemotherapy, and given the per- Pediatric Core Binding Factor AML. PLoS ONE 10(9): ceived mechanistic similarities, patients with these translocations are frequently referred to as e0138782. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0138782 having CBF-AML. It remains uncertain as to whether, collectively, these translocations are Editor: Ken Mills, Queen's University Belfast, mechanistically the same or impact different pathways in subtle ways that have both biological UNITED KINGDOM and clinical significance. Therefore, we used transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) to investi- Received: June 15, 2015 gate the similarities and differences in genes and pathways between these subtypes of pediat- Accepted: September 3, 2015 ric AMLs.