Fig. 1

MLL2/KMT2D expression profile in CML patients. a Data analysis from the MILE study group database revealed that MLL2/KMT2D expression is upregulated in 76 CML patients compared to 73 control samples available (microarray probe 231974_at, Mann–Whitney test, p < 0.0001). b MLL2/KMT2D expression among different phases of CML. The lowest expression level was found in the more aggressive blast phase (29 patients in chronic phase, 8 in accelerated phase and 9 in blast phase, Kruskal–Wallis test, p = 0.0415). c The median value of MLL2/KMT2D expression was used as the cut-off to dichotomize CML patients in “low” and “high” expression groups. When testing all the combinations of phases, the low expression of MLL2/KMT2D was more frequent in the more aggressive blast phase compared to the chronic phase (Fisher Exact one-side test, p = 0.0361). d MLL2/KMT2D expression in CML patients sensitive or resistant to imatinib therapy. The lowest expression level was found in the patients that did not respond to the therapy (22 resistant and 17 sensitive patients to imatinib, Mann–Whitney test, p = 0.0195)