Expression of FGFR3 in acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients and its contribution to proliferation of circulating endothelial cells / 中国病理生理杂志

ABSTRACT

AIM: To evaluate the expression of fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 (FGFR3) in acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) patients and its contribution to the proliferation of circulating endothelial cells (CECs).METHODS: The mRNA expression levels of FGFR3 in 44 patients with ALL were assayed by RT-PCR.Overall survival (OS) rates of the patients in FGFR3+ group and FGFR3-group were estimated by Kaplan-Meier analysis.The CECs were sorted from peripheral blood by magnetic-activated cell sorting and then counted by 3-color flow cytometry.The cell counts, antigen expression, growth curve and colony forming rate of the CECs in the 2 groups were determined.The FGFR3 expression of CECs was identified by immunofluorescence staining.RESULTS: The positive rate of FGFR3 mRNA expression was 43.2% in 44 ALL patients with normal karyotype.T-ALL expressed higher level of FGFR3 than B-ALL (P<0.05).FGFR3 was over-expressed in ALL patients with bone marrow blast proportion ≥5% (P<0.05).The probability of OS was significantly lower in FGFR3+ group than that in FGFR3-group (P<0.05).The sorted CECs highly expressed CD31, CD144, VEGFR-2 and CD146, and rarely expressed CD45.The counts of CECs and expression level of CD133 significantly increased in FGFR3+ group compared with FGFR3-group.The same result of the amount of colony formation was observed (P<0.05).There was significant difference at 3 time points of cultured CECs count in vitro between FGFR3+ group and FGFR3-group (P<0.05).The positive rate of FGFR3 expression of CECs from 19 ALL-FGFR3+ patients was (29.00±15.71)%.CONCLUSION: The over-expression of FGFR3 gene in ALL may be helpful to evaluate the prolife-ration of CECs, and become a double target with anti-tumor and anti-angiogenesis effects to offer more choice for molecular therapy in the future.