1: Leukemia. 2002 Feb;16(2):186-95. 

Quantitative HOX expression in chromosomally defined subsets of acute
myelogenous leukemia.

Drabkin HA, Parsy C, Ferguson K, Guilhot F, Lacotte L, Roy L, Zeng C, Baron A,
Hunger SP, Varella-Garcia M, Gemmill R, Brizard F, Brizard A, Roche J.

Division of Medical Oncology, University of Colorado Health Sciences and Cancer
Centers, Denver, CO 80262, USA.

We used a degenerate RT-PCR screen and subsequent real-time quantitative RT-PCR
assays to examine the expression of HOX and TALE-family genes in 34 cases of
chromosomally defined AML for which outcome data were available. AMLs with
favorable cytogenetic features were associated with low overall HOX gene
expression whereas poor prognostic cases had high levels. Characteristically,
multiple HOXA family members including HOXA3-HOXA10 were jointly overexpressed
in conjunction with HOXB3, HOXB6, MEIS1 and PBX3. Higher levels of expression
were also observed in the FAB subtype, AML-M1. Spearmann correlation
coefficients indicated that the expression levels for many of these genes were
highly inter-related. While we did not detect any significant correlations
between HOX expression and complete response rates or age in this limited set of
patients, there was a significant correlation between event-free survival and
HOXA7 with a trend toward significance for HoxA9, HoxA4 and HoxA5. While
patients with elevated HOX expression did worse, there were notable exceptions.
Thus, although HOX overexpression and clinical resistance to chemotherapy often
coincide, they are not inextricably linked. Our results indicate that
quantitative HOX analysis has the potential to add new information to the
management of patients with AML, especially where characteristic chromosomal
alterations are lacking.

PMID: 11840284 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


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