Abstract
LOSS OF A PORTION of the long arm of chromosome 5 is seen predominantly in therapy-related myelodysplastic syndromes and acute leukemias, as well as in a unique clinical disorder known as the 5q– syndrome. Recently, many growth factor and growth factor receptor genes have been localized to the long arm of chromosome 5, and several of these genes have been found to be deleted in patients with a 5q– chromosomal abnormality. These findings raise the possibility that alteration of expression of these genes may play a pathogenetic role in these hematologic disorders. In this review, we discuss the clinical and molecular biological findings associated with the 5q– abnormality.
