[Expression of hOCT1 in patients with chronic myelogeneous leukemia treated by imatinib mesylate]

To measure the expression of hOCT1 gene in patients with Chronic Myelogeneous Leukemia (CML) and to explore its role in the progress of the disease and responding to Imatinib Mesylate (IM) treatment.

Sixty three peripheral blood or bone marrow samples were taken from 30 patients with CML (20 in chronic phase, 10 in advanced phase). The samples were divided into two groups: responding (optimal and suboptimal) and non-responding according to effectiveness of the IM treatment. The mRNA levels of hOCT1 gene were detected with RT-PCR (SQ-PCR), 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 months after the IM therapy. The associations between hOCT1 gene levels and clinical presentations, laboratory indicators and cytogenetic findings were analysed.

No significant difference in the expression levels of hOCT1 gene was found before and after the IM treatment (0.5110+/-0.1629 vs 0.5207+/-0.1909, P=0.5840). No significant difference in the expression levels of hOCT1 genes was found between the patients in chronic phase and the patients in advanced phase before the IM treatment (0.5525+/-0.1985 vs 0.4490+/-0.1717, P=0.1090). The levels of hOCT1 did not have significant changes 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 months after the IM treatment (P=0.3412). No significant difference in the expression levels of hOCT1 genes was found between the 15 patients with optimal and suboptimal responding to IM and the 5 patients with no responding to IM (0.5820+/-0.1460 vs 0.4640+/-0.1781, P=0.127). Although the hOCT1 levels of the 16 chronic patients increased after IM treatment compared to the baseline (0.5207+/-0.1909 vs 0.5110+/-0.1629, P=0.001), there was no significant correlation between the increase of hOCT1 and the decrease of BCR-ABL (P=0.821).

hOCT1 has no association with the stage and course of CML, nor with the effectiveness of IM therapy.