| Description | Various transcripts: involving exons 1, 6, and 8 (145 amino acids) or 1, and 8 (54 amino acids) in the neurectoderm; transcripts involving exons 1,5,6,8 or 1,4,5,6,8, or 1,5,6,7,8, or 1,2,6,8, or 1,2,5,6,8 or 1,2,3,6,8 in leukemic cells; altogether, 8 different transcripts of BAALC, giving rise to 5 different proteins |
| Expression | Transcripts involving exons 1, 6, and 8, or 1, and 8 are found in neurectoderm tissues; BAALC is also expressed in normal early progenitor cells (CD34+) of the hematopoietic tissues: both uncommitted and lineage-committed progenitor cells (lymphoid T- and B-cell progenitors, myeloid and erytroid progenitors); down regulation occurs with cell differentiation; various transcripts are found in leukemic blasts (see above and below); also found expressed in the mesoderm and the muscle in the mouse |
| Localisation | Cytoplasmic; found adjacent to the cell membrane in the mouse; may be localized to lipid rafts and may play a synaptic role in the rat brain |
| Homology | No homology with other proteins; the ortholog lacks in lower vertebrates. |
| Note | |
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| Entity | 1/4 of acute non lymphocytic leukemia (AML) cases and 2/3 of acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) case have been found to exhibit high BAALC expression ; no expression in chronic leukemias (e.g. chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)); expression in blast crisis of CML. |
| Disease | AML cases: M0 AML, M1, M2 and M4eo cases, rarely M4 or M5 cases; no M3 case so far; association with the more immature blasts; no correlation with age, sex, haemoglobin level or platelets count, or FLT3 phenotype; BAALC expression is associated with a higher WBC count |
| Prognosis | Poor prognosis is associated with BAALC overexpression in AML cases: at 3 yrs, only 35-40% of patients with high BAALC expression were alive; independant risk factor; in particular, BAALC overexpression remains a poor prognostic factor in the absence of FLT3 internal tandem duplication. |
| Cytogenetics | Patients present with normal karyotypes, with +8, or with various anomalies. |
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| Entity | Glioblastoma |
| Note | BAALC in also upregulated in normal astrocytes |
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| BAALC expression and FLT3 internal tandem duplication mutations in acute myeloid leukemia patients with normal cytogenetics: prognostic implications. |
| Baldus CD, Thiede C, Soucek S, Bloomfield CD, Thiel E, Ehninger G |
| Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. 2006 ; 24 (5) : 790-797. |
| PMID 16418499 |
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| Molecular heterogeneity and prognostic biomarkers in adults with acute myeloid leukemia and normal cytogenetics. |
| Marcucci G, Mrózek K, Bloomfield CD |
| Current opinion in hematology. 2005 ; 12 (1) : 68-75. |
| PMID 15604894 |
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| Induction of BAALC and down regulation of RAMP3 in astrocytes treated with differentiation inducers. |
| Moodbidri MS, Shirsat NV |
| Cell biology international. 2006 ; 30 (3) : 210-213. |
| PMID 16376586 |
| |
| Baalc, a marker of mesoderm and muscle. |
| Satoskar AA, Tanner SM, Weinstein M, Qualman SJ, de la Chapelle A |
| Gene expression patterns : GEP. 2005 ; 5 (4) : 463-473. |
| PMID 15749074 |
| |
| BAALC, the human member of a novel mammalian neuroectoderm gene lineage, is implicated in hematopoiesis and acute leukemia. |
| Tanner SM, Austin JL, Leone G, Rush LJ, Plass C, Heinonen K, Mrózek K, Sill H, Knuutila S, Kolitz JE, Archer KJ, Caligiuri MA, Bloomfield CD, de La Chapelle A |
| Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2001 ; 98 (24) : 13901-13906. |
| PMID 11707601 |
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| BAALC 1-6-8 protein is targeted to postsynaptic lipid rafts by its N-terminal myristoylation and palmitoylation, and interacts with alpha, but not beta, subunit of Ca/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II. |
| Wang X, Tian QB, Okano A, Sakagami H, Moon IS, Kondo H, Endo S, Suzuki T |
| Journal of neurochemistry. 2005 ; 92 (3) : 647-659. |
| PMID 15659234 |
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