The perinucleolar region represents a special nuclear compartment involved in the cell malignancy and the perinucleolar heterochromatin reflects the presence of silent genes. The present study was undertaken to provide complementary and missing information on the perinucleolar heterochromatin in differentiating neutrophils in the bone marrow of patients with the chronic myeloid leukemia. That lineage is a very convenient model because of the increased number of granulocytic precursors that is satisfactory for size as well as optical density measurements in single cells. Moreover, the differentiation stages of neutrophils are well defined and easily identified. According to diameter measurements the enlarged width of the perinucleolar heterochromatin shell accompanied the decreasing nucleolar size in advanced stages of the cell differentiation. Such trend was not influenced by the anti-leukemic therapy with imatinib. Thus the increasing size of the perinucleolar heterochromatin shell with silent genes might reflect the genomic stability of the perinucleolar region during the cell differentiation. On the other hand, the increased perinucleolar heterochromatin condensation after the specific anti-leukemic therapy with imatinib indicated a “premature terminal differentiation” of leukemic neutrophils.

• MeSH
• Benzamides therapeutic use   MeSH
• Cell Differentiation * genetics   immunology   drug effects   MeSH
• Cell Nucleus * genetics   microbiology   pathology   MeSH
• Leukemia, Myelogenous, Chronic, BCR-ABL Positive drug therapy   genetics   immunology   MeSH
• Heterochromatin * genetics   immunology   pathology   MeSH
• Bone Marrow immunology   drug effects   MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Models, Genetic MeSH
• Neutrophils immunology   pathology   drug effects   MeSH
• Piperazines therapeutic use   MeSH
• Granulocyte Precursor Cells immunology   pathology   drug effects   MeSH
• Pyrimidines therapeutic use   MeSH
• Statistics as Topic MeSH
• Cell Nucleus Structures genetics   immunology   microbiology   MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Publication type
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH