Although BPDCN showed lower expression levels of RUNX2 than pDCs, BPDCN cells had significantly higher expression levels of RUNX2 than other subtypes of AML cells, and the knockdown of RUNX2 significantly abrogated proliferative capacity following the attenuation of pDC-signature gene expression in BPDCN cells. The gene discussed is RUNX2; the disease is acute myeloid leukemia.