Expresion And Clinical Significance Of Notch Signal Pathway Associated Genes In Patients With Acute Myelogenous Leukemia

Background and ObjectivesLeukemia is the most common hematological malignancy.Although the pathogenesis of leukemia is not known clearly,many leukemia-related oncogenes have been found. Notch signal pathway was first identified as a partner in the chromosome translocation t(7;9)found in some cases of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia(T-ALL).Many clinic studies have shown the ectopic expression of Notch receptor in patients with T-ALL.And it has been considered as an oncogenic transcription factor related to T-ALL.However, some scholars recently noticed that Notch receptor was also ectopically expressed in AML.But the role of Notch signal pathway in the pathogenesis of AML is not clear.Methods1.Patients:We selected 60 patients admitted to Qilu Hospital of Shandong University from August,2007 to March,2008,which include 30 cases of initial treatment AML, 30 cases of AML complete remission.And 24 healthy donors were studied as control group.2.We established methods of Q-RT-PCR to detect the expression level of Notch1, Delta4,Jagged2 and HES1mRNA in peripheral blood leukocytes of patients with AML.β-actin was detected as internal control.3.We performed analysis on the patients with the high expression level of Notch1, Delta4,Jagged2 and HES1 genes among groups.Results1.The results obtained in Q-RT-PCR.The expression of Notch1,Delta4,Jagged2 and HES1 mRNA have been detected in both human acute leukemia and normal peripheral blood leukocytes,and the expression of Notch1,Delta4,Jagged2 and HES1 mRNA in initial treatment AML was considerably higher than normal. 2.Notch1,Delta4,Jagged2 and mRNA in complete remission AML was expressed at the same level as normal periphal blood leukocytes.While HES1 mRNA in complete remission AML was considerably higher than normal.Conclusions1.The specificity,sensitivity and reproducibility were good for the fluorescent quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction(Q-RT-PCR)to detect Notch1,Delta4,Jagged2 and HES1 expression.It can be considered as a promising tool for quantitative assessment of Notch signal pathway genes in experimental as well as clinical studies.2.The results show that Notch1,Delta4,Jagged2 and HES1 mRNA in initial treatment AML were over expressed,suggesting Notch signal pathway may be associated with pathogenesis of AML and the expression level pathway may be associated with states of the diease.