Bcl-2 protein level in blood of patients with acute myeloid leukaemia

Abstract EN

We investigated the association between blood bcl-2 protein and the occurrence of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), bcl-2 being an anti-apoptotic protein incriminated in cancer.

Blood specimens were collected from 28 patients with AML, either de novo or following myelodysplastic syndrome, and from 25 healthy unrelated controls.

In some specimens, the pro-apoptotic p53 protein and oligonucleosomes were also determined.

In controls, bcl-2 was at 90.6 ± 27.8 U/ml, whereas p53 was detected in only 72 % of the specimens (0.15 ±0.17 ng/ml); bcl-2 and p53 levels were inversely correlated.

Oligonucleosomes were detected in all the controls but at low level and with no correlation to bcl-2 or p53.

Bcl-2 level was higher in AML patients than in controls and some more increased in patients with de novo AML than in patients with secondary AML.

In overall patients, bcl-2 correlated to lactico-dehydrogenase and to blood leukocytes, but weakly to blasts, and not to caryotype, cd-34 antigen and mdr-1 genotype.

p53 was detected in only one patient with AML and oligonucleosomes were higher in patients than in controls.

Studied on 12 patients without cytogenetic poor prognosis, bcl-2 level correlated to bad outcome.

These data suggest that blasts that over express bcl-2 are resistant to apoptosis, defining this protein as a factor of bad prognosis in AML.

Moreover, the determination of normal ranges for bcl-2 protein may be instrumental in the study of various diseases where apoptosis is enhanced, disrupted or delayed.