Abstract
Previous gene function analyses have indicated that HOXA9, DEK, CBL and CSF1R are aberrantly expressed in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). We analyzed the expression of these genes in a series of 41 adult patients with AML using quantitative real-time RT-PCR, and tested the association of the expression with the following hematologic and clinical parameters: age, FAB, immunophenotype and karyotype aberrations. A high proportion of the patients showed over- or underexpression of the analyzed genes. DEK was overexpressed in 98% of the cases, whereas CBL, CSF1R and HOXA9 were either overexpressed in 20%, 17% and 78% or underexpressed in 20%, 42% and 15% of the cases, respectively. Patients whose karyotype contained t(8;21)(q22;q22), showed lower relative expression of HOXA9 at a statistically significant level <formula>(<italic>p</italic><0.05).</formula> Bone marrow samples without expression of CD34 antigen were associated with either overexpression of DEK or HOXA9. Furthermore, an association was found between the AML-M2 subtype and lower expression of CBL, CSF1R or HOXA9, and between the AML-M5 subtype and CBL or CSF1R overexpression.