[Expression of cdx2 gene in pediatric patients with leukemia and its clinical significance]

This study was aimed to investigate the expression of cdx2 gene in pediatric patients with acute leukemia and its clinical implication. The bone marrow and peripheral blood were collected from 33 newly diagnosed pediatric patients with acute leukemia, the cdx2 gene expression in each AL subtypes and normal controls was detected by RT-PCR, the relationship between cdx2 expression and response to treatment was observed. The results showed that the expression of cdx2 was positive in 25 out of 30 AL cases (83.3%), to be exact, in 20 of 21 ALL cases (95.2%) and in 5 of 9 AML cases (55.6%), which showed statistical difference (p < 0.05). The cdx2 mRNA could be detected also in 1 of 3 CML cases. However, no expression of cdx2 was observed in all normal control which revealed significant difference between patient group and normal control group. 21 AL patients with cdx2 positive expression (17 ALL and 4 AML patients) and 4 AL patients with cxd2 negative expression (1 ALL and 3 AML patients) all reached complete remission (CR) after treatment, which showed no correlation with CR rate. 8 patients with positive cdx2 expression were followed up. As a result, the cdx2 positive expression at initial diagnosis of patients remained positive at reaching CR, but it gradually turned to negative along with prolonging of CR, while the cdx2 negative expression at initial diagnosis of patients remained negative at CR in bone marrow level. It is concluded that cdx2 positive expression is observed in the majority of pediatric AL patients, even positive rate in ALL patients is higher than that in AML patients, while the cdx2 expression also can be observed in CML patients. The cdx2 positive expression is not related to the CR rate in AL patients.