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Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia

HLA class I in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL): possible correlation with clinical outcome

Abstract

The majority of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) possess either a bcr1 or a bcr3 type fusion between PML and RARα genes. The junction sequences may possibly be a target for immune response and influence susceptibility to the disease. In this case, HLA class I allele frequencies would be different between bcr1 and bcr3 patients. To test this hypothesis, we typed 102 APL patients for HLA-A, -B and -Cw alleles. The A*1, A*30, B*51, B*41, Cw*0602, and Cw*1701 alleles showed a different distribution between bcr1 and bcr3 patients, but in no case was this statistically significant after correction for the number of comparisons or was confirmed in an independent panel. Moreover, no difference was detected between bcr1 and bcr3 when HLA alleles were grouped according to their peptide binding specificities. Comparing HLA frequencies, clinical features at diagnosis and clinical outcome of the 64 patients homogeneously treated with all-trans retinoic acid and idarubicin (AIDA protocol) we observed a statistically significant association between HLA-B*13 and risk of relapse by univariate and multivariate regression analysis. Should this finding be confirmed in larger future studies, this observation would be of outmost importance in identifying patients at high risk of relapse in which more aggressive consolidation therapies should be used.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from FIRC, the Italian Foundation for Cancer Research, and from Associazione Italiana per la Leucemia, sezione di Roma (ROMAIL). E Bolognesi is a recipient of a fellowship from Gruppo di Cooperazione in Cancerologia. MC Rapanotti is a recipient of a fellowship from FIRC. We are grateful to Dr R Tosi for critically reviewing the manuscript.

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Bolognesi, E., Cimino, G., Diverio, D. et al. HLA class I in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL): possible correlation with clinical outcome. Leukemia 14, 393–398 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2401691

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