Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and its relationship to normal B lymphopoiesis.

The leukaemic cells from patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia have long been thought to represent circulating virgin B lymphocytes. In this article Alan Johnstone discusses the accumulated data from structural and functional analyses which place the leukaemic cells at a stage intermediate between the pre-B cell and mature B lymphocyte, a stage not normally found in the circulation.