Lsc and hsc signatures for predicting survival of patients having hematological cancer

A method for determining a prognosis of a subject having leukemia or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) comprising:

• a) obtaining a sample from a subject;
• b) determining a gene expression level for each gene of a set of genes selected from leukemia stem cell (LSC) signature genes listed in Tables 2, 6, and/or 12, hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) signature genes listed in Tables 4 and/or 14, and/or CE-HSC/LSC signature genes listed in Table 19, to obtain a subject expression profile of a sample obtained from the subject;
• and
• c) classifying the subject as having a good prognosis or a poor prognosis based on the subject expression profile;
• wherein a good prognosis predicts an increased likelihood of survival within a predetermined period after initial diagnosis and poor prognosis predicts a decreased likelihood of survival within the predetermined period after initial diagnosis.