Expression Of CD133 In Childhood Acute Leukemia

Objective: To evaluate the expression of CD133 and its clinical significance in childhood acute leukemia (AL) and explorer its relationship with the expression of CD34 and prognostic factors.Methods: The expression level of CD133 gene were detected by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method in bone marrow mononuclear cells from 54 cases with untreated childhood AL(AL group), including 34 cases of ALL and 20 cases of AML, and 18 cases of control children without malignant disease. Otherwise, we analyzed the correlation to the expression of CD133, clinical features (age, gender, WBC counts in peripheral blood, morphology, immunophenotypy, the clinical risk classification) and CD34 in childhood acute leukemia.Results: 26 cases were positive on the mRNA expression of CD133 gene in the 54 cases of the untreated childhood AL patients. The rate of CD133 mRNA expression were 48.1%. There were 50.0% positive expression of CD133 mRNA in the ALL group and 45% positive expression of CD133 mRNA in AML group respectively. There were 0% positive expression of CD133 mRNA in control group. The CD133 expression rates in control group were remarkably lower than those in AL group (P <0.05). There were no difference between untreated ALL group and untreated AML group in CD133 mRNA expression(P>0.05). There were significant difference between the expression of CD133 the clinical risk classification in the childhood AL. Only AML had relationship with morphology, immunophenotypy. But there weren't significant difference between the expression of CD133, WBC counts in peripheral blood, gender and age. After induction therapy, there were lower complete remission rate in CD133 (+) 73.3% than that in CD133(-) 91% AL patients, but there weren't significant difference between them (P>0.05). There had significant relationship between CD133 and CD34. Conclusions: (1) There were higher incidence of CD133 mRNA expression in childhood AL. CD133 gene expression might play a role in the pathogenesis of AL in childhood. (2) Examination of CD133 mRNA might have clinical significance in predicting prognosis and clinical treatment effect in childhood AL. (3) The expression of CD133 were significantly correlated with the expression of CD34.