Gene Expression in Tissue From Patients With Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

OBJECTIVES: * Identify genes involved in specific biologic processes or molecular functions that contribute to the mechanisms by which the BCR/ABL tyrosine kinase induces a leukemic phenotype using RNA banked from patients with BCR/ABL-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) enrolled on ECOG-2993. * Compare patterns of mRNA expression of BCR/ABL fusion protein in patients with B-lineage ALL vs patients with ALL and no cytogenetic abnormalities enrolled on ECOG-2993. * Determine both shared and differing expression patterns in patients with BCR/ABL-positive and cytogenetically negative ALL with respect to achievement of complete remission and duration of disease-free and overall survival. OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study. Total RNA is isolated from stored tissue samples and integrity is verified by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). cDNA libraries are created from total RNA and gene expression is analyzed via microarray analysis. Genes of interest are further analyzed by flow cytometry and RT-PCR. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 137 patients will be accrued for this study.