Expression of stem genes in childhood with B linage acute lymphoblastic leukemia and Its clinical significance

Objective This study investigated the expression of stem genes in bone marrow cells and its relationship with clinical prognostic factors in childhood with B linage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BALL) at initial diagnosis.Methods Real-time PCR was applied to detect the expression of stem genes(Oct4,JAG1,Nanog,Sox2,Fgf4.etc) in bone marrow of 32 childhood B-ALL patients (B-ALL group) and 5 normal children (control group).The gene expression differences in 2 groups were compared.Their relationship with clinical prognostic factors (e.g.gender,age,white blood cell count,risk stratification,etc.) were assayed.Results:In B-ALL group,the expression of Nanog,JAG1,CD133-2,CD44 and Runx1 was significantly higher than those of control group (P ＜ 0.01).They were 2.74 ± 1.04,4.31 ± 2.41,10.23 ± 3.21,4.66 ± 1.73 and 7.44 ± 3.01 times that of their control groups respectively.While the expression of Oct4,Sox2,DLL1,Fgf4 and COX-2 was statistically lower than those of control group (P ＜ 0.01).They were 15.00％ ± 0.06,13.04％ ±0.08,18.12％ ±0.11,4.73％ ±0.03 and 9.59％ ±0.04 that of their control groups respectively.It was concluded that the expression of those stem genes has no relations among gender,age,white blood cell count,percentage of bone marrow blast cells,FAB subtype,cytogenetic,leukemia fusion gene in childhood BALL.The expression of JAG1 was significantly related to the level of risk stratification (r =0.755,P ＜ 0.01) while others had no statistical correlation with it.Conclusion:Compared to the control group,the stem genes were differentially expressed in B-ALL groups.The expression of JAG1 was correlated to the clinical risk stratification,which suggested the aberrant expression of JAG1 gene may be a risk factor in childhood B-ALL patients.It might have a potential value in predicting the prognosis and guiding clinical treatment. Key words: Stem genes; Childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia; Risk stratification