Compositional analysis gives insight into leukaemia cell lines expression profiles compared to those within patient sub-groups

The use of cell lines has been, and continues to be, an invaluable tool for understanding the cell and molecular biology of malignant haematopoiesis. Good culture practice should involve regularly confirming authenticity to identify possible cross-contamination from other cells (Capes-Davis et al, 2013). However, a further issue exists: how closely does a cell line represent the parental disease process. A gene expression profile represents an integration of all of the molecular and mutational processes driven by the disease and has been used to characterise, classify, predict response and to provide prognostic information. For example, does an acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) cell line actually represent the molecular processes associated with the phenotype