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Prognostic significance of microRNA-99a in acute myeloid leukemia patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 53, pages 1089–1095 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Overexpression of microRNA-99a (miR-99a) have been associated with adverse prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Nevertheless, whether it also predicts poor outcome in post-allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) AML patients remains unclear. To further elucidate the prognostic value of miR-99a, 74 AML patients with miR-99a expression report who underwent allo-HSCT from The Cancer Genome Atlas database were identified and grouped into either miR-99ahigh or miR-99alow based on their miR-99a expression levels relative to the median. Two groups had similar clinical and molecular characteristics except that miR-99ahigh group had fewer patients of the French-American-British M4 subtype (P = 0.018) and more frequent CEBPA mutations (P = 0.005). Univariate analysis indicated that high miR-99a expression was unfavorable for both event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS; P = 0.029; P = 0.012, respectively). Multivariate analysis suggested that high miR-99a expression was an independent risk factor for both EFS and OS in AML patients who underwent allo-HSCT [hazard ratio (HR) 1.909, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.043–3.494, P = 0.036 and HR 2.179, 95% CI 1.192–3.982, P = 0.011, respectively]. Our results further proved that high miR-99a expression could predict worse outcome in AML patients, even in those who underwent intensive post-remission therapy such as allo-HCST.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81500118, 61501519), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (project No.2016M600443), Jiangsu Province Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (project No.1701184B) and PLAGH project of Medical Big Data (Project No.2016MBD-025).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Zhiheng Cheng, Lei Zhou, Kai Hu, Yifeng Dai.

  2. These authors jointly supervised this work: Jinlong Shi, Lin Fu

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Translational Medicine Center, Huaihe Hospital of Henan University, Kaifeng, 475000, China

    Zhiheng Cheng & Jinlong Shi

  2. Department of Hematology and Lymphoma Research Center, Peking University, Third Hospital, Beijing, 100191, China

    Zhiheng Cheng, Kai Hu, Xiaoyan Ke & Lin Fu

  3. Department of Hematology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China

    Lei Zhou

  4. Laboratory of Environmental Medicine and Developmental Toxicology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, 515041, China

    Yifeng Dai

  5. Department of Medicine, William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, MI, 48073, USA

    Yifan Pang

  6. Department of Hematology, Huaihe Hospital of Henan University, Kaifeng, 475000, China

    Hongmian Zhao, Tong Qin, Yu Han, Ning Hu, Li Chen, Chao Wang & Lin Fu

  7. Department of Hematology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University, Weihui, 453100, China

    Sun Wu

  8. Department of Respiratory, Huaihe Hospital of Henan University, Kaifeng, 475000, China

    Yijie Zhang

  9. Department of Hematology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, 215006, China

    Depei Wu

  10. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China

    Jinlong Shi

  11. Department of Medical Big Data, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China

    Jinlong Shi

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Correspondence to Jinlong Shi or Lin Fu.

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Cheng, Z., Zhou, L., Hu, K. et al. Prognostic significance of microRNA-99a in acute myeloid leukemia patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Bone Marrow Transplant 53, 1089–1095 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41409-018-0146-0

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