PIM-1 mRNA expression is a potential prognostic biomarker in acute myeloid leukemia

Abstract

Background: High expression of proviral integration site for Moloney murine leukemia virus-1 (PIM-1), a serine/threonine kinase, is associated with many cancers. The main purpose of this study were to investigate that the correlation between PIM-1 mRNA levels and clinicopathologic features and its clinical significance in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Methods: qRT-PCR was performed for 118 de novo AML and 20 AML complete remission patients and 15 normal individuals. All statistical analysis were performed using Graphpad Prism5 software. Results: We observed that expression of PIM-1 mRNA was higher in AML patients than in healthy individuals and in complete remission AML patients (P=0.0177). Further, high PIM-1 mRNA levels were more associated with high-risk FLT3+ AML patients than the FLT3- group (P=0.0001) and were also associated with clinical factors such as risk stratification (P=0.0029) and vital status (P=0.0322). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis indicated that PIM-1 mRNA expression correlated with overall survival (OS), disease free survival (DFS), and relapse rate (RR) in AML patients. Most importantly, the high PIM-1-expressing patients took longer to achieve complete remission than the low expression group (P=0.001). In addition, the complete remission rate was significantly lower in the high PIM-1 group (P=0.0277) after induction therapy. Conclusions: Above results suggest that PIM-1 mRNA levels may be an independent prognostic factor in AML.