Leukocytic-vascular endothelial growth factor and integrin alphavbeta3 in acute myeloid leukemia: relation to clinical outcome.

Different signaling routes seem to be simultaneously triggered in leukemia, with distinct and overlapping activities. Different reports emphasize the interaction between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and integrin alphavbeta3 as a key control system of angiogenesis, oncogenesis and metatasis. The current study was undertaken to investigate leukocytic-VEGF and integrin alphavbeta3 as correlated with clinical outcome in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The study groups included 10 newly diagnosed AML patients before the start of any chemotherapeutic medication and 10 normal healthy control subjects. The level of VEGF was estimated in culture supernatant of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMN) of both groups using commercially available ELISA kit. The degree of integrin alphavbeta3 expression on PBMN was estimated by indirect immunoflourescence. Obtained results showed that the level of VEGF and degree of expression of integrin alphavbeta3 were significantly higher in AML patients than in normal healthy subjects. However, no significant correlation was observed between the levels of VEGF and the degree of expression of integrin alphavbeta3. When clinical findings were concerned, there was a significant positive correlation between VEGF and the percentage of blasts, both in peripheral blood & bone marrow. On the other hand, such correlations were not observed in case of integrin alphavbeta3. In addition no significant correlation was observed between either VEGF or integrin alphavbeta3 and clinical staging, age, and sex. In conclusion, our results proved the importance of VEGF and integrin alphavbeta3 in the pathogenesis of AML. However, the per se increased production or/and secretion of VEGF and integrin alphavbeta3 by leukemic PBMN cells, respectively can not be used as independent predictor (s) for clinical outcome in AML patients. It is more comprehensive to study changes of intracellular signaling pathways when such critically interacting factors are concerned in the leukemic process.