Clinical significance of mitochondrial DNA content in acute promyelocytic leukaemia

Abstract

Summary Although a growing body of evidence demonstrates that altered mtDNA content (mtDNAc) has clinical implications in several types of solid tumours, its prognostic relevance in acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL) patients remains largely unknown. Here, we show that patients with higher‐than‐normal mtDNAc had better outcomes regardless of tumour burden. These results were more evident in patients with low‐risk of relapse. The multivariate Cox proportional hazard model demonstrated that high mtDNAc was independently associated with a decreased cumulative incidence of relapse. Altogether, our data highlights the possible role of mitochondrial metabolism in APL patients treated with ATRA.

Mitochondrial gene expression signature predicts prognosis of pediatric acute myeloid leukemia patients

“…Enhanced mtDNA copy number has been previously reported to be play role on AML initiation, progression as well as predictive of inferior survival outcomes ( 12 , 36 ). A contrasting finding was recently observed in patients of AML M3 subgroup where elevated mtDNA copy number was predictive of superior survival outcome ( 37 ), however, AML M3 subgroup has a distinct disease biology and is not directly comparable with other AML subgroups ( 38 ). On the other hand, similar to our previous finding ( 12 ), we observed that mtDNA copy number were significantly higher and independently predictive of worse survival outcome in this cohort of pediatric AML patients as well.…”

Higher than normal mitochondrial DNA content associated with better outcome in acute promyelocytic leukaemia? Maybe

“…In their paper, Pereira‐Martins et al 1 demonstrate that acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL) patients treated with chemotherapy and all‐ trans retinoic acid (ATRA) whose leukaemia cells had increased mitochondrial DNA content had a significantly lower cumulative incidence of relapse than patients with normal mitochondrial DNA levels. Although mitochondrial DNA's influence on the pathogenesis of lung cancer, oral cancer and a number of other solid tumours 2,3 as well as some non‐malignant diseases such as Alzheimer's 4 has been extensively studied, investigations in acute leukaemia have only recently been reported.…”