A High Occurrence of Acquisition and/or Expansion of C-CBL Mutant Clones in the Progression of High-Risk Myelodysplastic Syndrome to Acute Myeloid Leukemia

The molecular pathogenesis of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and its progression to secondary acute myeloid leukemia (sAML) remain to be explored. Somatic C-CBL mutations were recently described in MDS. Our study aimed to determine the role of C-CBL mutations in the progression of MDS to sAML and sought to correlate with clinicohematological features and outcome. Bone marrow samples from 51 patients with high-risk MDS (13 with refractory cytopenia with multilineage dysplasia, 19 with refractory anemia with excess blast 1, and 19 with refractory anemia with excess blast 2) were analyzed for C-CBL mutations at both diagnosis and sAML in the same individuals. Mutational analysis was performed for exons 7 to 9 of C-CBL gene. Of the 51 paired samples, C-CBL mutations were identified in 6 patients at the sAML phase. One patient retained the identical C-CBL mutation (G415S) at sAML evolution and exhibited clonal expansion. The other five patients acquired C-CBL mutations (Y371S, F418S, L370_Y371 ins L, L399V, and C416W) during sAML evolution. Three of the six patients harboring C-CBL mutations at sAML had additional gene mutations including JAK2(V617F), PTPN11, or N-RAS. There was no significant difference in clinicohematological features and overall survival with respect to C-CBL mutation status. Our results show that C-CBL mutation is very rare (0.6%) in MDS, but acquisition and/or expansion of C-CBL mutant clones occur in 11.8% of patients during sAML transformation. The findings suggest that C-CBL mutations play a role at least in part in a subset of MDS patients during sAML transformation.