PIM-1 mRNA expression is a potential prognostic biomarker in acute myeloid leukemia.
BACKGROUND
High expression of proviral integration site for Moloney murine leukemia virus-1 (PIM-1), a serine/threonine kinase, is associated with many cancers. The main purpose of this study were to investigate that the correlation between PIM-1 mRNA levels and clinicopathologic features and its clinical significance in acute myeloid leukemia (AML).


METHODS
qRT-PCR was performed for 118 de novo AML and 20 AML complete remission patients and 15 normal individuals. All statistical analysis were performed using Graphpad Prism5 software.


RESULTS
We observed that expression of PIM-1 mRNA was higher in AML patients than in healthy individuals and in complete remission AML patients (P = 0.0177). Further, high PIM-1 mRNA levels were more associated with high-risk FLT3+ AML patients than the FLT3- group (P = 0.0001) and were also associated with clinical factors such as risk stratification (P = 0.0029) and vital status (P = 0.0322). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis indicated that PIM-1 mRNA expression correlated with overall survival (OS), disease free survival (DFS), and relapse rate (RR) in AML patients. Most importantly, the high PIM-1-expressing patients took longer to achieve complete remission than the low expression group (P = 0.001). In addition, the complete remission rate was significantly lower in the high PIM-1 group (P = 0.0277) after induction therapy.


CONCLUSIONS
Above results suggest that PIM-1 mRNA levels may be an independent prognostic factor in AML.
['Cheng|Hui|H|', 'Huang|Chongmei|C|', 'Xu|Xiaoqian|X|', 'Hu|Xiaoxia|X|', 'Gong|Shenglan|S|', 'Tang|Gusheng|G|', 'Song|Xianmin|X|', 'Zhang|Weiping|W|', 'Wang|Jianmin|J|', 'Chen|Li|L|', 'Yang|Jianmin|J|']
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor D005260:Female D015973:Gene Expression Regulation, Leukemic D006801:Humans D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D011379:Prognosis D051573:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-pim-1 D012333:RNA, Messenger D012074:Remission Induction D012307:Risk Factors
PIM-1 mRNA Expression Acute myeloid leukemia Prognosis