Identification of serum miR-34a as a potential biomarker in acute myeloid leukemia

• Published in: Cancer biomarkers : section A of Disease markers Vol. 22; no. 4; pp. 799 - 805
• Main Authors: Huang, Yiqun, Zou, Yong, Lin, Luhui, Ma, Xudong, Chen, Hongpu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.01.2018; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Acute myeloid leukemia; Apoptosis; Biomarkers; Cytogenetics; Diagnostic software; Diagnostic systems; Leukemia; Medical prognosis; miRNA; Myeloid leukemia; Patients; Ribonucleic acid; RNA; diagnosis; acute myeloid leukemia; biomarker; miR-34a; prognosis
• ISSN: 1574-0153; 1875-8592; 1875-8592
• DOI: 10.3233/CBM-181381

BACKGROUND: MicroRNA-34a (miR-34a), as a tumor-suppressive miRNA, has been found to induce cell apoptosis in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, the diagnostic and prognostic significance of miR-34a in AML remains largely unknown. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to explore its associations with clinical characteristics and prognosis of AML patients. METHODS: This study detected serum miR-34a level in 117 diagnosed AML patients and 60 control subjects by using qRT-PCR, and results were compared to clinical features and patient outcome. Since cytogenetically-normal AML (CN-AML) has a good uniformity of cytogenetics and provides a perfect platform for detection of AML biomarkers, we further analyzed miR-34a expression in 56 CN-AML subjects. RESULTS: We found that miR-34a was significantly downregulated in AML and CN-AML patients. MiR-34a underexpression was commonly observed in AML patients with intermediate/poor risk cytogenetic, and M5 subtype. ROC analysis demonstrated that serum miR-34a could well identify AML/CN-AML patients from healthy individuals. More importantly, miR-34a expression was found negatively correlated with aggressive clinical variable, and served as an independent prognostic indicator. In addition, AML/CN-AML patients with low miR-34a expression displayed shorter overall and recurrence free survival. CONCLUSIONS: Altogether, miR-34a might have an application as a diagnostic and prognostic indicator for AML patients.