Clonality of normal and malignant hemopoiesis
Creators: name: Turhan, Ali G
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2011

description: In the normal adult human, hemopoiesis appears to be maintained by the simultaneous activity of many stem cell-derived clones. Conversely, most examples of human myeloid malignancies have been shown to represent clonal populations arising as a result of the unregulated expansion of a single transformed hemopoietic stem cell. The limits of the proliferative capacity of normal hemopoietic stem cells in humans and their persistence in hemopoietic malignancies have, however, not been extensively Investigated. One of the most likely reasons for this is the lack, until very recently, of a widely applicable method to analyze the clonality status of human cell populations. Methylation analysis of two polymorphic genes. HPRT and PGK, now allows such studies to be performed in approximately 50 % of females. The possibility that normal human hemopoietic stem cells might have the capacity to mimic the behaviour of some transformed stem cells by generating clones of progeny that could dominate the entire hemopoietic system was then examined. Such a phenomenon has been well documented in animal models of marrow cell transplantation. I therefore undertook an analysis of all allogeneic marrow transplants performed over a 1 to 1-1/2 year period where the genotype of the donor made clonality analysis using the HPRT or PGK systems possible. Using this approach, I obtained evidence in two patients suggesting that a single or, at most, a very small number of normal primitive hemopoietic stem cells were able to reconstitute the hemopoietic system. In one case the data suggested that such reconstitution was likely to have derived from a stem cell with both lymphopoietic and myelopoietic potential. However, in all other cases hemopoiesis in the transplant recipient was found to be polyclonal. Such findings indicate that clonal dominance in the hemopoietic system is not sufficient to infer that a genetically determined neoplastic change has occurred. In addition, these findings have implications for the design of future gene therapy protocols. The same methodology was also applied to investigate the clonality of different hemopoietic cell populations in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) and essential thrombocytosis (ET). In both of these myeloproliferative disorders, the neoplastic clone produces terminally differentiated progeny that appear minimally different from normal. Data from the CML studies confirmed the non-clonal nature of the cells emerging in long-term CML marrow cultures. Similarly, patients transplanted with cultured autologous marrow were shown to undergo polyclonal and bcr-negative reconstitution of their hemopoietic system. Analysis of a series of patients with a clinical diagnosis of ET showed that polyclonal hemopoiesis in the presence of an amplified neoplastic clone is not a rare event in this disorder, and that clonality results do not always correlate with other neoplastic markers associated with myeloproliferative diseases in general. Another example of polyclonal hemopoiesis in the presence of an amplified neoplastic clone was demonstrated in a patient with Ph¹-positive ALL whose disease appeared to have originated in a lymphoid-restricted stem cell. The studies described in this thesis reveal a level of complexity of normal and neoplastic stem cell dynamics not previously documented. They highlight the need for more precise information about the molecular basis of regulatory mechanisms that govern hemopoietic cell proliferation and survival at every level of differentiation. Finally they support the accumulating evidence that acquisition of full malignant potential requires several additive genetic changes first postulated many years ago as the somatic mutation theory of carcinogenesis.