Expression of p210 and p190 BCR‐ABL due to alternative splicing in chronic myelogenous leukaemia

The hallmark of chronic myelogenous leukaemia (CML) is the presence of the Philadelphia chromosome and its resultant fusion message, BCR-ABL, and fusion protein, p210. Patients with CML in blast crisis, or with Philadelphia positive acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), can have a smaller BCR-ABL fusion transcript possessing only the first exon of BCR fused to ABL. This smaller transcript encodes a 190 kD protein which is more strongly …