HLA CW3 and HLA CW4 have a protective effect on acquisition of chronic myeloid leukemia on Mexican patients.

Introduction: Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is characterized by a chromosomal translocation t(9; 22) resulting in the chimeric ber-abl oncogene that encode for the p210 protein which has an increased tyrosine kinase activity. The fusion part of this protein contains a novel aminoacid sequence. If peptides derived from this leukemia-specific part of p210 are expressed in the context of HLA molecules on malignant cells this may elicit immunologically specific responses.