Chromosome 15 Open Reading Frame 59 (C15orf59)

Chromosome 15 is one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in humans. People normally have two copies of this chromosome. Chromosome 15 spans about 106 million base pairs (the building material of DNA) and represents between 3% and 3.5% of the total DNA in cells.
A type of blood cancer known as acute promyelocytic leukemia is caused by a rearrangement (translocation) of genetic material between chromosomes 15 and 17. This translocation, written as t(15;17), fuses part of the PML gene from chromosome 15 with part of the RARA gene from chromosome 17. This mutation is acquired during a person's lifetime and is present only in certain cells. This type of genetic change, called a somatic mutation, is not inherited.