The retinoic acid pathway is critical for maintaining a balance between self-renewal and differentiation of hematopoetic stem cells, [51, 52] and deregulation of the RAR-RXR pathway, as was shown in our study, may affect differentiation and self-renewal, and thereby allow RA to progress to acute leukemia. The gene discussed is RARA; the disease is myelodysplastic syndrome with single lineage dysplasia.