Presence of heterozygous ATM deletion may not be critical in the primary response of chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells to fludarabine.

Objectives: Abnormalities of the TP53 or ATM, cooperating tumor-suppressor genes, significantly worsen the treatment options for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients. Although the aberrations seem to be mutually exclusive in this leukemia, inactivation of the former gene leads to worse prognosis. We tested the in vitro sensitivity of the CLL samples with heterozygous ATM deletion to fludarabine and combination of fludarabine and rituximab; the responses were compared with the TP53-abnormal and wild-type (wt) cells to delimitate relative significance of ATM deletion.

Cost-effective genotyping of human MBL2 gene mutations using multiplex PCR.

Mannose-binding lectin (MBL) deficiency is associated with increased susceptibility to various infections and autoimmune disorders. It is caused by certain polymorphisms in the MBL2 gene promoter and mutations in the coding region of the gene. In this report, we present a novel, rapid, efficient and cost-effective method of two multiplex polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) for the assessment of three structural point mutations within exon 1 at codons 52, 54 and 57.