The primary product of DNA transcription in the blast cell of acute leukemia. Its characterization as an approach to the understanding of the origin of the blast crisis of chronic myeloid leukemia

The primary product of transcription, the heterogeneous nuclear RNA, is processed at a very low rate in leukemic blast cells. The proportion of double-helical segments, presumably the recognition sites of cleaving enzymes, is much greater. An alteration of the mechanisms dictating the formation of secondary structure in heterogeneous nuclear RNA might cause the inhibition of genome expression in leukemic cells.