Abstract
Aim: The rationale of this study was to explore the contribution of genetic variants of the folate pathway to toxicity of 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP)-mediated hematological toxicity in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and to explore the interaction of these variants with TPMT and ITPA haplotypes using multifactor dimensionality reduction analysis. Materials & methods: Children with ALL (n = 96) were screened for GCPII C1561T, RFC1 G80A, cSHMT C1420T, TYMS 5´-UTR 2R3R, TYMS 3´-UTR ins6/del6, MTHFR C677T, MTR A2756G polymorphisms using PCR-RFLP and PCR-amplified fragment length polymorphism techniques. Results:GCPII C1561T showed independent association with toxicity. The following synergetic interactions appeared to increase the toxicity of 6-mercaptopurine: TPMT*12 × RFC1 G80A; TPMT CTTAT haplotype × RFC1 G80A; TPMT CTTAT haplotype × RFC1 G80A × TYMS 2R3R. The genetic variants of thiopurine and folate pathway cumulatively appeared to increase the predictability of toxicity (r2 = 0.41) in a multiple linear regression model. For the observed toxicity grades of 1, 2, 3 and 4, the respective predicted toxicity grades were 1.65 ± 0.29, 1.68 ± 0.24, 2.56 ± 0.58 and 2.99 ± 1.03, ptrend < 0.0001. Conclusion: Gene–gene interaction between thiopurine and folate pathways inflate the 6-MP-mediated toxicity in Indian children with ALL illustrating the importance of ethnicity in the toxicity of 6-MP.
Original submitted 3 January 2012; Revision submitted 23 April 2012
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Y Rupasree for technical assistance and thank SJ Rajappa (Indo-American Cancer Hospital, Hyderabad, India), R Dandamudi (Rainbow Hospital, Hyderabad, India) and S Sinha (MNJ Institute of Oncology, Hyderabad, India) for providing clinical samples. The authors also thank NATCO Pharma Limited, Hyderabad, India, for financially supporting the doctoral student.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
Ethical conduct of research
The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.