Expression of WT1 gene in acute leukemia and its clinical significance / 白血病·淋巴瘤

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the expression level and clinical significance of WT1 gene in acute luekemia (AL) patients.Methods WT1 gene level was detected by real time quantitative-polymerase chain reaction in acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and in acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) patients.Then the expression levels of WT1 gene in different subtypes of AML were compared,and the correlation between gene expression and disease courses and prognosis were observed.Moreover,the relationship between disease courses and WT1 expression in patiens after receiving haemopoietic stem cell transplantation were analyzed.Results Among 66 cases,WT1 expression positive rate was 87.5 ％ (14/16) in AML and 76.0 ％ (38/50) in ALL.In AML,the expression level in M3 showed the lowest than that in any other subtypes (compared with M1,M2,M4,M5,P value was 0.040,0.007,0.006 and 0.01,respectively).The expression level of WT1 was closely correlated with leukemia disease courses.The expression level in complete remission (CR) group showed a significant lower expression level than that in non-remission group (P =0.018) and relapse group (P =0.003),and the re-increase of WT1 expression level could predict relapse as early as 1.5 months.Moreover,WT1 expression also showed an close relationship with prognosis of patients receiving haemopoietic stem cell transplantation.Patients whose WT1 was undetectable had a better prognosis than those with persistent expression,and increase again after becoming undetectable.Conclusion WT1 has a high expression level in AL,which can represent minimal residual disease.The expression level in M3 was lowest than that in different AML subtypes,and its expression level has a close correlation with clinical disease course and prognosis of AL.