title: Aberrant Expression of HOXA5 and HOXA9 in AML.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Aberrant expression of HOX gene expression has been observed in cancer. The purpose of this study was to investigate the alteration of HOXA5 and HOXA9 expression and their clinical significance in acute meloid leukemia (AML).
  
  
  METHODS
  The expression of HOXA5 and HOXA9 genes of bone marrow samples from 75 newly diagnosed AML patients and 22 healthy controls for comparison were examined by Real- time quantitative PCR (RQ-PCR) assay. Statistical analysis was conducted to evaluate HOXA5 and HOXA9 expression as possible biomarkers for AML.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results showed that the complete remission rate (52.6%) of the patients who highly expressed HOXA5 and HOXA9 was significantly lower than that (88.9%) in patients who lowly express the genes (P=0.015). Spearmann correlation coefficients indicated that the expression levels for HOXA5 and HOXA9 genes were highly interrelated (r=0.657, P<0.001). Meanwhile, we detected significant correlations between HOXA9 expression and age in this limited set of patients (P=0.009).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results suggest a prognostic impact of increased expression of HOXA5 and HOXA9 in AML patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China E-mail : weijiafang@zju.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ruan
authors.forename: Xiao-Ping
authors.initials: XP
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Li-Xia
authors.initials: LX
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Wei-Qin
authors.initials: WQ
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Wei-Jia
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Fang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D020732:Cytogenetic Analysis; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: C489213:HOXA5 protein, human; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins; D012333:RNA, Messenger; C097899:homeobox protein HOXA9