Affiliations: [a] Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt | [b] Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt | [c] Department of Basic Research, Genomics and epigenomics program, Children‘s Cancer Hospital Egypt, Cairo, Egypt | [d] Department of Pediatric Oncology, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University/Children’s Cancer Hospital Egypt, Cairo, Egypt | [e] Department of Clinical Pathology, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University/Children’s Cancer Hospital Egypt, Cairo, Egypt
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Wael M. El-Sayed, Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. Tel.: +20 112183 4101; Fax: +20 2 2684 2123; E-mails: waelelhalawany @hotmail.com and wael_farag@sci.asu.edu.eg.
Note: [1] Equally contributed (co-first author).
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is characterized by heterogeneity in phenotypic, genotypic, and clinical traits. miRNAs play an important role in pathogenesis and diagnosis of adult AML. Such information is not available about miRNA expression role in pediatric AML. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to investigate the expression of miR-370 and miR-375 as new diagnostic biomarkers to discriminate pediatric AML patients and to predict their roles in the disease molecular basis. METHODS: The expression of both miR-370 and miR-375 in peripheral blood (PB) of pediatric AML patients was assessed by QPCR; their impact for diagnosis was evaluated by ROC curve and their roles in pediatric AML development were predicted by bioinformatics analysis. RESULTS: The expression of miR-370 and miR-375 levels was significantly decreased in pediatric AML patients, suggesting them as tumor suppressor miRNAs as supported by bioinformatics analysis. miR-370 showed better potential and sensitivity toscreen pediatric AML patients and more significant correlation with AML risk than miR-375. This is the first study to report the positive correlation between both miR-370 and miR-375. CONCLUSION: miR-370 level in peripheral blood can serve as a potential non-invasive diagnostic biomarker and was significantly correlated with AML risk. We strongly recommend PB miRNAs as diagnostic biomarkers for pediatric AML.
