Activation-induced cytidine deaminase mRNA levels in chronic lymphocytic leukemia

The Rai and Binet staging systems, which are used as standard methods for evaluating the prognosis of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), have some restrictions in identifying patients with early-stage CLL who will progress rapidly. To solve this defect, other prognostic parameters have become important in recent years. Intracellular up-regulation of the AID gene in the leukemic lymphocytes of patients with CLL may be an important parameter for predicting the progression of CLL. In this study, AID mRNA expression levels were evaluated in 50 patients with CLL and 50 healthy controls. AID mRNA expression was significantly higher in patients than in controls. We then evaluated AID mRNA levels according to the stages of CLL. Regarding AID mRNA levels, patients with Rai stages 0, I, and II were compared with patients with stages III and IV, whereas patients with Binet stage A were compared with patients with Binet stages B and C. In patients with higher-risk Rai stages III and IV and Binet stages B and C, activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) mRNA levels were also significantly higher. Additionally, we found that the mRNA levels of patients with AID in CLL were eight-fold higher than those in control patients, suggesting that AID overexpression promotes chromosomal abnormalities and is associated with CLL progression and survival. For this reason, and because of the simplicity of quantitative real-time PCR analysis, AID might be a useful clinical parameter after its importance is confirmed in larger and multivariate studies.