Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 May 15.
Published in final edited form as: Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2020 Apr 7;60:112–118. doi: 10.1016/j.gde.2020.02.019

Figure 4. Model for the evolution of aplastic anemia and clonal hematopoiesis in MDS-AML in the short telomere syndromes.

Figure 4.

Short telomere syndrome aplastic anemia patients have shorter telomere length at birth. They are thus more prone to stem-progenitor cell dropout and eventual loss of clonal mutations that may arise under the pressure of telomere shortening and with age. In contrast, short telomere MDS-AML patients have relatively longer telomere length (albeit shorter than age-matched controls) and are predicted to sustain clonal events that may arise with stem cell dropout, especially as they age. This would ultimately be predicted to lead to an age-dependent increase in MDS-AML.