High bone marrow miR-19b level predicts poor prognosis and disease recurrence in de novo acute myeloid leukemia

• Published in: Gene 2018-01, Vol.640, p.79-85
• Main Authors: Zhang, Ting-juan, Lin, Jiang, Zhou, Jing-dong, Li, Xi-xi, Zhang, Wei, Guo, Hong, Xu, Zi-jun, Yan, Yang, Ma, Ji-chun, Qian, Jun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML); Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Biomarkers, Tumor - genetics; Biomarkers, Tumor - metabolism; Bone Marrow - metabolism; Bone Marrow - pathology; Case-Control Studies; Child; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation, Leukemic; Humans; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute - genetics; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute - metabolism; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute - pathology; Male; MicroRNAs - genetics; Middle Aged; miR-19; Mutation; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local - genetics; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local - metabolism; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local - pathology; Neoplasm Staging; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; Prognosis; ROC Curve; Survival Rate; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0378-1119; 1879-0038
• DOI: 10.1016/j.gene.2017.10.034

Oncogenic role of miR-19 family has been identified in human cancers especially in lymphoid malignancies. However, to date, little studies investigated the role of miR-19 family in myeloid malignancies. Herein, we examined miR-19a/b expression and explored its clinical significance in de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The detection of miR-19a/b expression was performed by real-time quantitative PCR in bone marrow mononuclear cells of 113 patients and 42 healthy donors. Both miR-19a/b levels were significantly increased in AML patients in contrast to controls. Patients with miR-19a/b overexpression were more frequently occurred in female, and had an older age. Moreover, cases with miR-19a overexpression had a higher frequency of U2AF1, C-KIT and CEBPA mutations, whereas miR-19b overexpressed cases harbored U2AF1 and IDH1/2 mutations. There was no significant association of miR-19a overexpression with complete remission (CR) rate and overall survival (OS) among whole-cohort AML, non-M3 AML, and cytogenetically normal AML (CN-AML). However, although miR-19b overexpression was not correlated with CR rate, patients with miR-19b overexpression presented significantly shorter OS in whole-cohort AML and a trend in non-M3 AML and CN-AML patients. Importantly, our data also showed that miR-19a/b expression level at CR phase was lower than diagnosis time, and was returned to primary level even higher when at relapse phase. Our findings revealed that miR-19a/b overexpression were frequent events in de novo AML patients. Moreover, up-regulation of miR-19b expression was associated with poor prognosis and disease recurrence in AML. •MiR-19 expression was significantly increased in AML.•MiR-19b overexpression was associated with poor prognosis in AML.•MiR-19 expression was a potential biomarker predicting disease recurrence in AML.