Clonality investigation of morphologically dysplastic hematopoietic cells in myelodysplastic syndrome marrows

The aim of this paper was to investigate whether the morphological dysplastic cells in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) marrows derived from abnormal chromosomal clone. Fluorescence in situ hybridization was used in combination with immunochemistry/immuno-magnetic bead sorting to investigate the penetration of chromosomal abnormalities into dysplastic hematopoietic cells in MDS patients with documented chromosome abnormalities in the bone marrow at diagnosis. Typical granulocyte dysplasia was defined as granulocytes with bilobed pseudo Pelger–Huet anomaly, erythrocyte dysplasia as tri-nucleus or nuclear budding erythrocytes (21 patients were investigated, respectively) and megakaryocytes dysplasia as lymphocytic appearance megakaryocytes (14 patients were investigated). When data were analyzed as a whole, the mean percentage of clonal cells with typical dysplasis was always lower than clonal cell percentage in all nucleated cells no matter whether in granulocytes, erythrocytes or megakaryocytes. For each individual case, the situation was the same with just few exceptions. The chromosome ploidy of micro-megakaryocytes was obviously reduced when compared to reported normal megakaryocytes. Our research suggested that tri-lineage morphological dyshematopoiesis is secondum alteration not a specific feature (imagery) of the abnormal chromosomal clone in MDS.