Clinical and prognostic implications of Roundabout 4 (robo4) in adult patients with acute myeloid leukemia.

Background: Robo4 is involved in hematopoietic stem/progenitor cell homeostasis and essential for tumor angiogenesis. Expression of Robo4 was recently found in solid tumors and leukemia stem cells. However, the clinical implications of Robo4 expression in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) remain unclear.

Clinical implications of the SETBP1 mutation in patients with primary myelodysplastic syndrome and its stability during disease progression.

Mutations of the SET binding protein 1 (SETBP1) gene have been identified in patients with myeloid neoplasms, but the clinical relevance of this mutation and its association with other gene mutations in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and the stability during disease progression remains unclear. Mutations in SETBP1 gene at exon 4 were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction and direct sequencing in 430 MDS patients. The results were correlated with clinical features, cytogenetics, gene mutations and treatment outcomes.

IDH mutations are closely associated with mutations of DNMT3A, ASXL1 and SRSF2 in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes and are stable during disease evolution.

Current information about clinical significance of IDH mutations in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), their association with other genetic alterations and the stability during disease progression is limited. In this study, IDH mutations were identified in 4.6% of 477 patients with MDS based on the FAB classification and in 2.

Higher bone marrow LGALS3 expression is an independent unfavorable prognostic factor for overall survival in patients with acute myeloid leukemia.

Alterations of galectin-3 expression are often seen in cancers and may contribute to tumorigenesis, cancer progression, and metastasis. The studies concerning clinical implications of galectin-3 expression in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are scarce. We investigated the expression of LGALS3, the gene encoding galectin-3, in the bone marrow (BM) mononuclear cells from an original cohort comprising 280 adults with primary non-acute promyelocytic leukemia.