Expression of PRAME gene in acute leukemia and its clinical significance / 中国实验血液学杂志

This study was aimed to detect the expression levels of preferentially expressed antigen of melanoma (PRAME) gene in acute leukemia (AL) and to evaluate the clinical significance of PRAME gene. The quantitative detection method was established by SYBR Green I real-time quantitative RT-PCR, then PRAME mRNA was measured by this method in 55 cases of acute leukemia, out of which 43 cases were acute myeloid leukemia (AML), 9 cases were acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) and other types leukemia were 3 cases. In addition, expression of PRAME gene was also analyzed in 7 cases of non-malignant hematological diseases and 8 healthy volunteers. K562 cell line was used as a positive control. The results showed that the expression of PRAME gene was found in 35 cases of acute leukemia, the positive percentage was 64%. No expression could be detected in any of the non-malignant hematological diseases and healthy volunteers. In 35 PRAME positive cases, 28 cases were AML, which mainly belonged to M3, M4 and M2 subtypes, and 5 cases was ALL. In 31 fusion gene positive cases, 23 cases were PRAME positive, and in 24 fusion gene negative cases 12 cases were PRAME positive. No significant relationship was found between PRAME expression level and clinical characteristics (age, sex, WBC count, blast cells in BM). The expression of PRAME gene decreased or disappeared in 6 patients achieving complete remission (CR). It is concluded that the PRAME gene expresses in 64% AML patients, which mainly belonged to M3, M4 and M2 subtypes, no expression could be detected in any of the non-malignant hematological diseases and healthy volunteers. There is remarkable difference in the level of PRAME transcript of the 35 cases and the expression of PRAME gene decreases or disappears when the patients achieved complete remission. These results suggest that PRAME expression in acute leukemia may be a useful marker to detect the minimal resi-dual disease (MRD) and to determine the response to therapy in AL patients.

Characteristics of T cell receptors recognizing antiphospholipid syndrome associated antigens / 中国实验血液学杂志

To understand the characteristics of T cell receptors recognizing antiphospholipid syndrome associated antigen, the characteristics of T cells were analyzed using T cell receptor beta variable region (TCRbetaV) gene spectrotyping in a case of antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). The results indicated that in the case of APS there were 2 dominant T cell clones. The TCRbetaVs sequences of the 2 T cell clones showed the TCRbetaVs belonged to 8 and 23 gene families respectively. The peptides of third complementarity-determining regions (CDR3) in the TCRbetaVs were CASSLLVAGGPRAYNEQFFGPG and CASSLAGFGQPQHFGDG. Comparing the motifs in CDR3 with another autoimmune disease, the motif YNEQFFGPG in TCRbetaV8 and motif QHFGDG in TCRbetaV23 were identical with that of idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura and systemic lupus erythematosus reported before. In conclusion, some T cell clones proliferating in these autoimmune diseases may recognize the same antigens.