[Expression of vascular endothelial growth factor in bone marrow cells of patients with acute myeloid leukemia]

To investigate the role of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in the pathogenesis and progression of acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was employed for VEGF mRNA detection. VEGF levels in the bone marrow cell cultural supernatant and plasma from normal subjects and AML patients were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

VEGF mRNA expression was present in most of the AML cell lines HL-60, K562 and Raji, but not in Jurkat cells. The expression rate of VEGF mRNA in the bone marrow cells from AML patients (82%) was higher than the rates in normal subjects (30.76%) and AML patients with autologous bone marrow transplantation (41.67%). Refractory and non-refractory AML patients had higher mean plasma VEGF levels than the normal donors and AML patients with transplantation did, without significant differences observed in the latter 2 groups. With also significant difference between them, refractory and non-refractory AML groups had respectively 11.0 and 7.3-fold higher VEGF levels in the culture supernatant than the normal donor group did.

The abnormality of VEGF expression may play an important role in the development of AML, and VEGF expression might be used as one of the indexes for prognostic assessment for AML patients.