The potential of protein expression profiles in categorization risks for acute myeloid leukemia: A pilot study

Abstract

Currently, there are no markers to predict response to acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapy and patients have to wait for a period of 3-6 months to see treatment response. The study aimed to analyze changes in protein expression in AML cells between different categorization risk groups using proteomics techniques. Six peripheral blood (PB) and six bone marrow (BM) samples at diagnosis and remission times were collected from AML patients. Another Six PB samples were collected from different categories of AML. All samples were analyzed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The levels of proteins in patients with AML were compared at different categorization risk, individual response to treatment and clinical characteristics. Twenty-one and 145 differentially expressed proteins were identified with disease progression and risk categories of AML, respectively. Three (3) proteins were noticeably highly expressed out of the range of others proteins by at least 3-fold difference between diagnosis and remission. Two other of proteins were up regulated by more than 10 folds between risk categories of AML. Furthermore, 4 proteins were found to be expressed in one risk category, but were not detectable in other two risk categories. The study showed that a panel of differentially expressed protein profiles might serve as more objective biomarkers for accurate stratification of different risk categories of AML.