ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate BAALC(brain and acute leukemia cytoplasmic)gene expression in patients with de novo acute myeloid leukemia(AML)and its clinical significance. Methods BAALC expression was determined by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction(RQ-PCR) in 63 de novo AML patients.The association between BAALC expression and therapeutic effect was analyzed.Results The correlation coefficiencies were over 0.99 for standard curves of RQ-PCR method. BAALC expression was detected in 49(78%)AML patients.The peripheral WBC counts,hemoglobin, platelet counts and the bone mahow blast cell percentage at onset in 31 AML patients with high BAALC expression were(26.3?18.1)?10~9/L,(78.3?21.8)g/L,(76.9?64.5)?10~9/L and(61.2?22.3)% and those of 32 AML patients with low BAALC expression were(30.2?21.7)?10~9/L,(81.6?30.9)g/L, (73.9?57.2)?10~9/L,(54.3?16.3)%,respectively.No statistic differences were found between these two groups.The AML patients with normal chromosome karyotypes are more likely to have a high BAALC expression(68%)compared with those with abnormal chromosome karyotypes(23%,?~2=12.093,P= 0.001).AML patients with normal cytogenetics and high BAALC expression shows significant lower CR rate (65%)compared with those with low BAALC expression(84%,?~2=6.573,P=0.013). Conclusion High BAALC expression may define an important risk factor in AML with normal cytogenetics and predicts an adverse prognosis.