Reduced miR-215 expression predicts poor prognosis in patients with acute myeloid leukemia

Abnormal expression of microRNA-215 has been identified in a variety of solid cancers. However, little is known about the expression pattern of microRNA-215 in acute myeloid leukemia. This study was to investigate the status of microRNA-215 expression and further analyze its clinical significance in acute myeloid leukemia.

Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay was performed to evaluate the expression level of microRNA-215 in 113 patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Besides, the relationship between microRNA-215 levels and clinical and pathological factors was explored.

Compared with the healthy individuals, microRNA-215 expression in acute myeloid leukemia patients was significantly down-regulated (P= 0.001). MicroRNA-215 low-expressed patients had higher white blood cells than microRNA-215 high-expressed patients (P= 0.014). The incidence of FLT3/ITD mutation in the patients with low microRNA-215 expression was significantly higher than those with high microRNA-215 expression (P= 0.025). MicroRNA-215 low-expressed patients had significantly shorter overall survival than microRNA-215 high-expressed patients in both non-M3 acute myeloid leukemia patients and cytogenetically normal patients (P= 0.017 and P= 0.044, respectively). Meanwhile, multivariate analysis confirmed the adverse prognostic value of microRNA-215 expression in acute myeloid leukemia patients with non-M3 subtypes.

Our study demonstrates that reduced microRNA-215 expression is a common event and is associated with poor clinical outcome in acute myeloid leukemia.