Clinical Significance of Decreased GPX1 Expression in Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (Non-M3)

To determine the expression levels of GPX1, SOCS5 and IL7 and their clinical significance in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).

A case-control study.

Department of Hematology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, China, from January 2013 to November 2020.

Based on the bioinformatics analysis, the expression levels of GPX1, SOCS5 and IL7 in the bone marrow of 64 AML patients (non-M3) and 32 healthy individuals were evaluated by real-time PCR. Correlation between GPX1 expression and the clinical characteristics, response to induced chemotherapy, and survival time of AML patients were analysed as the outcome measure.

GPX1 was significantly downregulated in AML patients, which helped in distinguishing AML patients from normal controls. The area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) was 0.741 (p <0.001). Additionally, GPX1 expression was correlated with gender (r = -0.250, p = 0.045), FAB classification (r = -0.332,  p = 0.004), and chemotherapy response (r = 0.366, p = 0.003). AML patients with high GPX1 expression levels had a lower rate of remission (p = 0.021) and poor long-term survival (p = 0.036) than those with low GPX1 expression levels.

Low GPX1 expression in AML patients may be closely associated with the pathogenesis and chemoresistance of AML. Key Words: Acute myeloid leukaemia, Clinical outcome, Gene expression, GPX1.