ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the expression level and promoter methylation of SOX17 gene and the clinical correlations in Chinese patients with chronic myeloid leukemia ( CML ) . Methods The levels of SOX17 expression and methylation were detected by RQ-PCR and RQ-MSP. Results SOX17 expression level was significantly lower in CML compared with 30 controls (P=0.001). The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) was 0.748 to differentiate CML from control (P=0.001). There was a trend of correlation between SOX17 expression and bcr/abl transcript (r = 0.439,P = 0.068) in CML patients. Hypermethylation of SOX17 promoter was detected in 3 (4%) CML patients, however, there was no difference as compared with 32 controls. In our study, SOX17 hypermethylation was not corrected with its expression. Conclusion Decreased SOX17 expression is a common molecular event in CML and may be considered as an available biomarker to diagnose CML. Dysregulated SOX17 is not caused by promoter hypermethylation in CML.