title: The significance of detecting WT1 expression in childhood acute leukemias.
abstract: WT1 (Wilms' tumor gene 1) overexpression is implicated in the prognosis of acute leukemia. The purpose of this study was to investigate WT1 expression and its clinical implication in childhood acute leukemia (AL) in Chinese population. Bone marrow specimen from 200 children at different stages of acute leukemia and from 21 children without leukemia were studied. The WT1 expression at diagnostic marrow specimen in both acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) was higher than control group, whereas WT1 expression in AML was higher than in ALL, and WT1 expression level in relapse in ALL increased more significantly than in AML. The WT1 expression level showed positive correlation with the hypodiploidy and BCR-ABL fusion gene in acute leukemia. A rapidly decrease of WT1 expression level predicted a good response to the induction therapy and low expression of WT1 correlates with remission status. This study suggested that WT1 expression levels in acute leukemia can potentially be a marker for evaluating therapeutic efficacy, correlating with monitoring minimal residue disease, and predicting hematological relapse in children acute leukemia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology and Oncology, Children's Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou City, China. shaoyanhu67@126.com
authors.forename: Shao-Yan
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Wei-Ying
authors.initials: WY
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Zi-Xing
authors.initials: ZX
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Xu-Li
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jian-Nong
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Cen
authors.forename: Hai-Long
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Yi-Huan
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Chai
authors.forename: Chien-Shing
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D020732:Cytogenetic Analysis; D005260:Female; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D016044:Fusion Proteins, bcr-abl / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D016130:Immunophenotyping; D007223:Infant; D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D018365:Neoplasm, Residual / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics*; D011379:Prognosis; D012008:Recurrence; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D025721:WT1 Proteins / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D025721:WT1 Proteins; D016044:Fusion Proteins, bcr-abl