Range Determination of Antigen Expression in Myeloid, Erythroid and Lymphoid Cell Lineages among Patients with Myelodysplastic Syndrome

Myelodysplastic syndrome is a mixed clonal disorder of bone marrow progenitor cells. Understanding the pattern of the different lineage-specific, immature, and mature markers in myelodysplastic syndrome will help in setting-up the frame of reference to diagnose. Patients and We compared 60 bone marrow samples from 30 newly-diagnosed patients with myelodysplastic syndrome and 30 patients with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura as the control to perform a quantitative analysis of the antigen expression patterns in granulocytic, monocytic, erythroid and lymphoid lineages and myeloid precursors. Quantitative analysis of CD markers, showed that the mean percentages of CD33, CD13, CD11b, HLA-DR, CD10 and CD34 positive granulocytes were 91%, 84.98%, 77.20%, 14.59%, 40.34% and 34.25%, respectively in myelodysplastic syndrome and 96.89%, 91.57%, 81.47%, 10.56%, 58.30% and 32.37%, respectively in idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. Flow cytometric analysis of erythroid lineage showed the mean percentage of CD71 in myelodysplastic syndrome and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura cases to be 64.54% and 83%, respectively. Investigation of antigen expression in the myeloid precursors of myelodysplastic syndrome patients showed the mean proportions of: 19.89%, 59.53%, 57.26%, 69.24%, 60.64% and 23.43% for CD117, CD34, HLA-DR, CD33, CD13 and CD11b, respectively. Also, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura cases showed the mean percentages of 11.73%, 45.67%, 58.90%, 74.28%, 70.16% and 15.66% for CD117, CD34, HLA-DR, CD33, CD13 and CD11b, respectively. There is no doubt that providing the reference values for an antigen expression pattern among myelodysplastic syndrome cases enhances the utility of flow cytometric analysis interpretation among these patients. Keywords: Myelodysplastic syndromes, flow cytometry, immunophenotyping, antigen expression.