In acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a frequent target of gene amplification is chromosome 11, particularly chromosome region 11q23, including the MLL (myeloid/lymphoid leukemia) gene. Duplication/amplification of chromosome 11 was found by cytogenetic methods in 10 of 119 newly diagnosed patients with AML.
The amplification was presented as: amplification including only the 50 segment of the MLL gene (1 patient), trisomy 11 (3 patients), partial trisomy 11q (2 patients), isochromosome 11q (1 patient), and multiple amplification of specific regions (3 patients). In two cases, amplification involved parts of not only long arm but also of short arm of the chromosome 11: 11p15 and 11p11.1 to 11p13.