Egyptian Journal of Medical Human Genetics (May 2021)

HOTAIR expression and prognostic impact in acute myeloid leukemia patients

  • Rawda Ahmed Alaaeldin Ahmed Mohamed Saad,
  • Amany Ahmed Osman,
  • Mona Fathey Abdel Fattah Hassan,
  • Shereen Abdel Monem Ibrahim,
  • Yasmin Nabil El-Sakhawy

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s43042-021-00147-y
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 22, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

Read online

Abstract Background Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a disorder characterized by a rapid onset of symptoms attributable to bone marrow failure due to clonal proliferation of primitive hematopoietic stem cells or progenitor cells. Epigenetic abnormalities play an important role in the development and progression of acute leukemia. Long non-coding ribonucleic acid (lncRNA) plays an important role in epigenetic regulation. Homeobox (Hox) transcript antisense intergenic RNA (HOTAIR) is a lncRNA which has been determined to be a negative prognostic indicator in various solid-tumor patients. However, its role in hematopoietic tumors as AML is to be assessed. This study aimed at measuring lncRNA HOTAIR expression level on bone marrow (BM) mononuclear cells in newly diagnosed AML patients and correlating its expression with their outcome and different prognostic variables. This provides new prospective for a novel marker involved in development and progression of AML which can be used as a diagnostic marker and a target of therapy. The current study included 65 subjects divided into 35 newly diagnosed AML adult patients (before initiation of chemotherapy) and 30 non-leukemic adult patients who are candidates for BM aspiration for causes other than hematological malignancies as immune thrombocytopenic purpura and hypersplenism as controls. HOTAIR expression was measured on BM mononuclear cells by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Results HOTAIR expression was found to be significantly upregulated in AML patients (probability (p) value = 0.000) and it can be used as a diagnostic biomarker of AML as confirmed by a significant difference between cases and controls using receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis. However, it was not significantly correlated with event free survival (EFS) or prognostic variables. Conclusion This study showed that the expression of HOTAIR is upregulated in de novo AML patients and can be used as a diagnostic marker. However, highly expressed HOTAIR is not associated with poor prognosis.

Keywords