Confirming mesenchymal origin, BM-MSCs from AML patients expressed CD105 and CD146 (Figure 1a), and gene expression profiling demonstrated large differences in expression with statistically significant enrichment of collagen type 1 and other connective tissue and extracellular matrix genes in BM-MSCs as compared to AML blasts (Figure 2). This evidence concerns the gene MCAM and acute myeloid leukemia.