RATIONALE: Studying samples of bone marrow from patients with Fanconi anemia and from healthy participants in the laboratory may help doctors learn more about changes that occur in DNA and identify biomarkers related to Fanconi anemia.

PURPOSE: This laboratory study is evaluating gene function in bone marrow cells from patients with Fanconi anemia and from healthy participants.

OBJECTIVES:

• Describe the complete hematopoietic transcriptomes of Fanconi cells of every common complementation group (e.g., A, C, G, and F) as well as transcriptomes of neoplastic cells derived from bone marrow of patients with Fanconi anemia.
• Define large-scale dynamic gene expression data in these patients.

OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study.

Patients and healthy volunteers undergo bone marrow aspiration or biopsy for biological studies. Samples are analyzed for gene expression profiles using microarray assays.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 80 patients and 10 healthy volunteers will be accrued for this study.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Meets 1 of the following criteria:

  • Diagnosis of Fanconi anemia

    • Requires bone marrow aspiration or biopsy for clinical purposes

  • Healthy volunteer

    • Over 18 years of age
    • No known blood abnormality

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

• Platelet count > 150,000/mm^3
• White Blood Cell(WBC) > 4,000/mm^3
• Hemoglobin > 13 g/dL
• No clinical signs or symptoms of acute or subacute infection (e.g., viral, bacterial, or fungal)
• No allergies to lidocaine or xylocaine

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

• Not specified

FA Patients are recruited from OHSU Clinics. Healthy Normal donors are recruited with an IRB approved advertisement which runs in the Outlook and is posted on bulletin boards around campus