Profiling 25 Bone Marrow microRNAs in Acute Leukemias and Secondary Nonleukemic Hematopoietic Conditions

The standard treatment of acute leukemias (AL) is becoming more efficacious and more selective toward the mechanisms via which to suppress hematologic cancers. This tendency in hematology imposes additional requirements on the identification of molecular-genetic features of tumor clones. MicroRNA (miRNA, miR) expression levels correlate with cytogenetic and molecular subtypes of acute leukemias recognized by classification systems. The aim of this work is analyzing the miRNA expression profiles in acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and hematopoietic conditions induced by non-tumor pathologies (NTP).

A total of 114 cytological samples obtained by sternal puncture and aspiration biopsy of bone marrow (22 ALLs, 44 AMLs, and 48 NTPs) were analyzed by real-time PCR regarding preselected 25 miRNAs. For the classification of the samples, logistic regression was used with balancing of comparison group weights.

Our results indicated potential feasibility of (i) differentiating ALL+AML from a nontumor hematopoietic pathology with 93% sensitivity and 92% specificity using miR-150:miR-21, miR-20a:miR-221, and miR-24:nf3 (where nf3 is a normalization factor calculated from threshold cycle values of miR-103a, miR-191, and miR-378); (ii) diagnosing ALL with 81% sensitivity and 81% specificity using miR-181b:miR-100, miR-223:miR-124, and miR-24:nf3; and (iii) diagnosing AML with 81% sensitivity and 84% specificity using miR-150:miR-221, miR-100:miR-24, and miR-181a:miR-191.

The results presented herein allow the miRNA expression profile to de used for differentiation between AL and NTP, no matter what AL subtype.