[Expression of antiapoptotic gene aven in de novo acute myeloid leukemia patients and its clinical significance].

This study was aimed to investigate the aven mRNA expression level of leukocytes from peripheral blood(PB)of de novo patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and analyze its clinical significance, so as to provide a experimental basis for evaluating prognosis. The aven mRNA expression levels in PB samples from 69 de novo AML patients were detected by using real-time quantitative PCR. The relation of aven mRNA level with clinical and hematological characteristics (age, sex, WBC, Hb, Plt, LDH, Blast% in PB and BM, FAB subtype) and treatment outcome (CR rate and relapse rate) were analyzed. 21 normal individuals served as controls. The results showed that the expression level of aven mRNA was between 11.72% and 178.93% (median 37.2%) in de novo AML and between 10.81% and 50.98% (median 28.81%) in normal individuals. Aven mRNA expression level was higher in the AML group than that in the controls (p = 0.006). As aven mRNA expression level was compared with other clinical and hematological parameters, there were significant correlations between aven mRNA expression level and age (r = 0.25, p = 0.039), and between hemoglobin level (r = 0.29, p = 0.019), FAB subtype(r = 0.253, p = 0.036). The median expression level (50.08%) of aven mRNA in older patients (> or = 44 years) was higher then that (32.41%) in younger patients (< 44 years) (p = 0.018). The complete remission (CR) rate after two cycles of chemotherapy in patients with lower aven mRNA level (25/30, 83.33%) was higher than that in patients with higher aven mRNA level(21/30, 70%), but the difference was not significant(p = 0.22). The difference of aven mRNA expression level between AML patients with relapse and AML patents without relapse was not significant (p = 0.076). It is concluded that the expression level of aven mRNA in de novo AML patients obviously increases, the overexpression of aven mRNA likely involves in genesis of AML. The definite relation of aven mRNA expression level with treatment outcome and relapse was not been found.