Using PPI analysis, the critical pathway of functional genes was found involved in the hematopoietic cell lineage and transcriptional misregulation in cancer, including HOXA10, MEIS1, FLT3, CD14, PROM1, RUNX2, and RUNX1 (data not shown), indicating the dominant roles of HOXA and MEIS1 in MLL-R ALL. Here, RUNX2 is linked to acute lymphoblastic leukemia.