Promiscuous genes and chromosomal rearrangements of hematopoietic malignancies

The nonrandomness of chromosomal abnormalities of hematopoietic malignancies, which has been established twenty years ago, has evidenced a more or less close relationship between some structural chromosomal abnormalities and leukemia subtypes. The same relation was, then, shown between gene and chromosome rearrangements. It becomes now obvious that genes involved in malignant proliferations may rearrange several different partner genes, as for instance the genes MLL, localised to chromosome band 11q23, and ETV6/TEL to 12p13. The study of these rearrangements is of particular importance in order to improve our knowledge of the functions of rearranged genes as well as their normal counterparts, and to analyse mechanisms favoring the occurrence of chromosomal rearrangements in malignancies.