Expression analysis of BECN1 in acute myeloid leukemia: association with distinct cytogenetic and molecular abnormalities.

Introduction: In acute myeloid leukemia (AML), it has been shown that AML-derived cells often remain sensitive to autophagy-inducing stimuli, leading to the idea that harnessing the autophagy can be pertinent to AML cytotoxic therapy. Despite this promising notion, to date, there is no comprehensive study addressing autophagy-related genes expression status in AML. As a critical mediator, BECN1 influences the onset and advance of autophagy and several studies have pointed to the BECN1 recurrent allelic deletion and expression variation in a broad range of tumors. To explore this caveat, we chose this alteration-prone gene to investigate in our study.

Methods: We have analyzed the expression status of BECN1 in a series of 128 de novo AML patients using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR).

Results: In our favorable subgroup, BECN1 expression did not alter (P = 0.301), but in intermediate and unfavorable patients, we have had BECN1 low expression compared to the normal controls (P = 0.008 and P < 0.001, respectively). We found evidence for the association of reduced expression of BECN1 with FLT3-ITD mutation (19 of 27 patients), monosomal karyotype (all of 11 patients), higher age, and WBC count.

Conclusion: Overall, remarkable association of reduced expression of BECN1 with FLT3-ITD mutation and monosomal karyotype and their functional relationship is interesting which should be addressed and verified in future studies.