Low expression of circulating microRNA-328 is associated with poor prognosis in patients with acute myeloid leukemia.

Background: Dysregulation of circulating miR-328 has been identified in several tumors and is associated with prognosis of patients. However, the expression pattern of miR-328 and the impact on prognosis has not yet been studied in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The purpose of this study is to investigate the expression status of miR-328 and its clinical significance in AML patients.

Methods: RNA was extracted from plasma of 176 patients with newly diagnosed AML and 70 healthy volunteers. The miR-328 expression was examined by Realtime quantitative PCR. The association of circulating miR-328 expression with clinicopathological factors and prognosis of AML patients was statistically analyzed.

Results: The expression of miR-328 was significantly downregulated in AML patients (median value 22.99, range: 3.63-242.0) compared with those of healthy controls (median value 89.17, range: 12.05-397.7; P < 0.001), and miR-328 expression was markedly increased in patients after treatment than before (23.40 ± 1.76 vs. 46.61 ± 3.83, P < 0.001). Moreover, low levels of miR-328 were associated with a higher white blood cell count and BM blast count (P = 0.026 and P = 0.003, respectively), and lower hemoglobin and platelet count (P = 0.004 and P = 0.022, respectively). Patients with low miR-328 expression had a relatively poor overall survival (P = 0.022) and shorter relapse-free survival (P = 0.008) than those with high miR-328 expression. In addition, low miR-328 expression was an independent prognostic factors for both OS (P = 0.017) and RFS (P = 0.023).

Conclusions: Circulating miR-328 downregulation is a common event and is associated with poor clinical outcome in AML patients.