Chromosome Aberrations: Their Role in the Etiology of Murine Leukemia

Abstract

If the association between chromosome aberrations and leukemia is a causal one, the aberrations should be present before the appearance of tumor. In a virus-induced murine leukemia in which the pre- and early leukemic stages were defined, aneuploidy was observed only during the later stages of the disease. This suggests that the chromosome alteration results from, rather than initiates, the neoplastic transformation.