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mRNA expression of apoptosis-associated genes in infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia: low Fas expression is an independent predictor for poor prognosis

Leukemia volume 18, pages 365–368 (2004)Cite this article

TO THE EDITOR

Although the treatment outcome of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) has markedly improved over the past 30 years, the prognosis of infants less than 12 or 18 months of age is still disappointing. In order to improve the outcome of infant ALL, new prognostic factors should be elucidated to better stratify high-risk patients and to introduce more effective therapy. Apoptosis is a basic mechanism regulating cellular growth and differentiation. This process is controlled by a highly organized network of a variety of genes identified as positive and negative regulators responding to several stimuli from either inside or outside of the cell. The disruption of apoptosis machinery plays an important role in both leukemogenesis and drug resistance of leukemic cells. In this study, we determined the mRNA contents of representative apoptosis-associated genes (Fas, Toso, DcR3: decoy receptor 3, caspase-3; HIAP2: human inhibitor of apoptosis protein 2; Apaf-1: apoptotic protease-activating factor-1, Bcl-2α and Bcl-2β) in blasts of infant ALL and evaluated the associations of the amount of gene expression with characteristics of infants with ALL including their treatment outcome. We analyzed bone marrow samples obtained at diagnosis from 33 patients (male 15, female 18) with infant ALL by real-time quantitative RT-PCR. Ages of the patients at diagnosis ranged from 0 to 17 months (median 5 months). The patients were treated in accordance with the Japan Infant Leukemia Protocol, MLL 96.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the participating institutions of the Japan Infant Leukemia Study Group for providing patients' samples and their data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    A Suminoe, A Matsuzaki, H Hattori, Y Koga & T Hara

  2. Division of Child Health, School of Health Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    A Matsuzaki

  3. Department of Medical Informatics, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    N Kinukawa

  4. Department of Pediatrics, Saga Medical School, Saga, Japan

    E Ishii

  5. Japan Infant Leukemia Study Group, Japan

    E Ishii

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  1. A Suminoe
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Correspondence to A Suminoe.

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Suminoe, A., Matsuzaki, A., Hattori, H. et al. mRNA expression of apoptosis-associated genes in infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia: low Fas expression is an independent predictor for poor prognosis. Leukemia 18, 365–368 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2403228

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2403228

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