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Updated: Apr 17, 2026

Flow Cytometry to Estimate Leukemia Stem Cells in Primary Acute Myeloid Leukemia and in Patient-derived-xenografts, at Diagnosis and Follow Up
Published on: March 26, 2018
[Expression of HIF-1α in primary acute myeloid leukemia cells and its relationship with prognosis]
Ping Chen1, Xi Jiang1, Hui-Fang Huang1
1Fujian Insitute of Hematology, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Hematology, Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, Fuzhou 350001, Fujian Province, China.
Objective:
This study was aimed to detect the expression of HIF-1α in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) except acute promyelocyte leukemia (APL) and investigate the relationship of its expression levels with clinical parameters and prognosis.
Methods:
The primary AML cells were collected from peripheral blood of 53 newly diagnosed AML patients by using CD3 negative sorting. The expression of HIF-1α was measured by real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR (FQ-PCR) , and the relationship between expression level of HIF-1α and clinical parameters (age, sex, WBC count, clinical typing, prognosis) was analysed according to relative expression level. Furthermore, Western blot was used to detect the protein level of HIF-1α in AML patients with or without extramedullary infiltration.
Results:
The expression level of HIF-1α did not correlate with age, sex, WBC count, Hb level, Plt count and the percentage of blast. There was no significant difference of HIF-1α expression between different AML subtype based on FAB. The higher level of HIF-1α was found in AML patients who did not get complete remission after one or two courses of chemotherapy, however, the difference was not statistically significant. The relapse rate was higher in AML patients with the higher expression of HIF-1α. In addition, the higher level of HIF-1α mRNA and protein were found in bone marrow of AML patients with extramedullary infiltration (P < 0.01). The negative correlation between HIF-1α and PTEN was observed (r = -0.48, P = 0.001).
Conclusions:
Overexpression of HIF-1α are closely related with extramedullary infiltration and prognosis of acute myeloid leukemia, and may be used as an early indicator of extramedullary infiltration and prognosis.

