Expression of Certain Leukemia/Lymphoma Related microRNAs and its Correlation with Prognosis in Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

• DOI: 10.1007/s12253-014-9861-z
• Publication Date: 2014-11-14T11:32:33Z
• Authors: Karolina Nemes; Monika Csóka; Noémi Nagy; Ágnes Márk; Zsófia Váradi; Titanilla Dankó; Gábor Kovács; László Kopper; Anna Sebestyén
• Keywords: Male; 0303 health sciences; Adolescent; Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal; Prednisolone; 610; Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma; Prognosis; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; 3. Good health; Survival Rate; MicroRNAs; 03 medical and health sciences; R1 Medicine (General) / orvostudomány általában; Bone Marrow; Child, Preschool; Biomarkers, Tumor; Tumor Cells, Cultured; Humans; Female; Child; Follow-Up Studies; Neoplasm Staging

In spite of the improved efficacy of therapy, it still fails in 15-20 % of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients. Recently, altered expression of certain miRNAs (miRs) have been described in ALL with potential effect on prognosis. Presence of certain miRs (miRNA-16, -21, -24, -29b, -128b, -142-3p, -155, -223) was characterized in human lymphoma and leukemia cells by real-time PCR. Expression of miRs in pediatric ALL patients (n = 24) was measured before chemotherapy, at conventional response checkpoints and at relapse. Correlation between altered miR expression and response to prednisolone at day 8 of therapy and long term prognosis was statistically analysed. Overexpression of "oncomiR/inflammamiR"-21 - which is characteristic in different tumors-was missing in human ALL cells. However, higher expression of miR-128b and lower expression of miR-223 is generally characteristic for human ALL cell lines and ALL cells isolated from pediatric patients. Correlation was shown between miR-128b expression and prognosis, prednisolone response and survival data in childhood ALL. Expression of miR-128b and miR-223-both are leukemia specific-changed in parallel with percentage of bone marrow blasts in remission and during relapse. Therefore, we suggest that overexpression of miR-128b and downregulation of miR-223 shows a significant correlation with treatment response and prognosis in childhood ALL.