Tetiana V. Borikun

Conference 2022 Poster Presentation

 

Project title

Prognostic value of miR-29b and miR-142 as markers of lymphocytes differentiation in marrow of patients with acute leukemia

 

Authors and Affiliations

Tetiana Borikun1, Natalia Lukianova1

1. R.E. Kavetsky Institute of Experimental Pathology, Oncology and Radiobiology, NAS of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine

 

Abstract

Background

CD34 and CD38 receptors are considered as markers of lymphoid stem cells (LSC) and can be used as predictive markers of acute leukemia (AL). Alongside, disturbances of gene regulation, caused by stem phenotype can affect neighboring cells by secretion of different regulatory molecules. MiR-29b and -142 are involved in these processes.
Due to this information, our aim was to establish the connection between leukemic stem cells presence in the general pool of blast cells in different cytomorphological and cytochemical variants of AL, as well as the expression of miR-29b and -142.

Methods

Research methods – cytomorphological (staining of peripheral blood smears and bone marrow puncture according to Pappenheim), flow cytometry method using a panel labeled mkAt to antigens of the “general population” of blast cells and for sequential identification of the LSC subclone. MicroRNA expression in bone marrow biopsy was detected by real-time reverse transcriptional PCR.

Results

The study of the immunophenotype of LSC was performed in different clinical and prognostic variants of Al and showed that most often the subclone of LSC with phenotype CD34+CD38- was determined in myelo-monocytic (M4) and monoblastic / monocyte variants (M5) of AL with minimal signs of blast differentiation (M0) and was not determined in promyelocytic (M3) and myeloblastic (M2) variants.
We found that the expression of microRNAs-29b directly correlates with the degree of maturity of blasts in Al (r =0.56). When comparing the expression of the studied microRNAs with the presence of LSC with the CD34 + / CD38- phenotype, we found that the expression of microRNA-29b and -142 is higher, compared with patients without LSC.

Conclusions

These findings confirm that miR-29a and miR-142 are important players in myeloid differentiation and their reduced expression is involved in AL development.