Rare cytogenetic abnormalities and alteration of microRNAs in acute myeloid leukemia and response to therapy

Abstract

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common acute leukemia in adults, which is heterogeneous in terms of morphological, cytogenetic and clinical features. Cytogenetic abnormalities, including karyotype aberrations, gene mutations and gene expression abnormalities are the most important diagnostic tools in diagnosis, classification and prognosis in acute myeloid leukemias. Based on World Health Organization (WHO) classification, acute myeloid leukemias can be divided to four groups. Due to the heterogeneous nature of AML and since most therapeutic protocols in AML are based on genetic alterations, gathering further information in the field of rare disorders as well as common cytogenetic abnormalities would be helpful in determining the prognosis and treatment in this group of diseases. Recently, the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in both normal hematopoiesis and myeloid leukemic cell differentiation in myeloid lineage has been specified. miRNAs can be used instead of genes for AML diagnosis and classification in the future, and can also play a decisive role in the evaluation of relapse as well as response to treatment in the patients. Therefore, their use in clinical trials can affect treatment protocols and play a role in therapeutic strategies for these patients. In this review, we have examined rare cytogenetic abnormalities in different groups of acute myeloid leukemias according to WHO classification, and the role of miRNA expression in classification, diagnosis and response to treatment of these disorders has also been dealt with.

DNA methylation markers in the diagnosis and prognosis of common leukemias

“…Epigenetic changes such as chromatin modification, microRNA expression changes, and DNA methylation changes have been reported extensively in cancer studies. 4 The methylation pattern of CpG sites is an epigenetic regulator of gene expression. 5,6 Extensive alterations in DNA methylation have been noted in almost all cancer types, causing changes in gene expression that promote oncogenesis.…”

MicroRNA-107 promotes apoptosis of acute myelocytic leukemia cells by targeting RAD51

“…Acute myelocytic leukemia is prevalent among children and adults with a higher proportion in adults. The incidence also increases with the growth of age, and the maximum age of AML patients even reaches 60 years old [2]. In the clinical treatment of AML, it has been found that some AML patients in middle and old age achieved complete remission after treatment, while many more of these patients may face relatively high recurrence and a low survival rate [3].…”

MicroRNA‑873 serves a critical role in human cervical cancer proliferation and metastasis via regulating glioma‑associated oncogene homolog 1

“…MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small noncoding RNAs that downregulate the translation of target protein-coding mRNAs at the 3'-untranslated region (3'-UTR) (4). Accumulating evidence indicated that miRNAs enhance cancer cell proliferation, apoptosis and metastasis in solid tumors and leukemia (5)(6)(7)(8). Previous studies have also revealed that abnormal expression of miR-873 occurs in various types of cancer, such as breast, lung, colorectal and ovarian cancer, and glioma (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17).…”