The Clinical Study on Expression of Midkine Gene in Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia / 天津医药

ABSTRACT

Objective: To investigate the expression of midkine (MK) gene in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and the clinical significance of MK thereof. Methods: The real-time PCR was used to assay MK gene expression in bone marrow of 15 normal children and 124 childhood ALL patients, including 73 patients in progression and 51 patients in complete remission. Three stratifications of progressing patients were established by prognostic factors such as white blood cell count, age, immunopherotype and response to the 7-day prednisolone prephase. Results: The significant statistic difference in MK gene expression was found between the progression group, the complete remission group and the normal group (P< 0.01). The MK gene expression was over-expressed in B-ALL than that in normal group. Furthermore, there was statistic difference between B-ALL and T-ALL (P< 0.01). But there was no difference in MK mRNA expression between the normal control and T-ALL. The assay in risk stratifications showed that the levels of MK gene were higher in standard risk group and mid-risk group than that in high risk group (P< 0.01 and P< 0.05, respectively). There was no significant difference between standard risk group and mid -risk group (P = 0.32). No correlations were found between MK level and age, gender or lactate dehydrogenase level in serum. The expression of MK was significantly lower in the group with higher white blood cells(WBC≥ 25×10~9/L) than that with lower WBC (WBC<25×l0~9/L) in peripheral blood (P< 0.05). Conclusion: The high level of MK was a favorable prognostic factor in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients.