[Expression and Clinical Significance of N-cadherin in Bone Marrow Leukemic Cells Derived from Patients with Acute Leukemia].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the expression of N-cadherin in bone marrow leukemic cells derived from acute leukemia patients and its clinical significances. METHODS: A total of 113 patients with acute leukemia were enrolled in this study. Flow cytometry was employed to detect the expression of N-Cadherin in bone marrow leukemic cells from acute leukemia patients and the relationships between the N-cadherin expression and the clinical characteristics of patients with acute leukemia were analyzed. RESULTS: The expression of N-Cadherin in bone marrow leukemic cells deriveted from patients with acute leukemia was variable with 0%-99.7%. For adult AML patients, the positive rate of CD34 in N-cadherin+ group was significantly higher than that in N-cadherin- group(67.39% vs 33.33%)(P=0.013), while the differences of total CR rate and rate of CR after 1 cycle of induction treatment were not significant between these 2 groups(P>0.05). As to ALL patients, N-cadherin+ group had significant lower WBC count (21.31±7.07 vs 51.10±23.69)(P=0.008) and lower percentage of peripheral blood blast (43.22±5.75% vs 66.45±5.65%)(P=0.015). The CR rate after 1 cycle of induction treatment and rate of overall CR were lower and the relapse rate was higher in N-cadherin+ ALL group than those in N-cadherin- ALL group, but the differences were not significant (P>0.05). For childhood ALL, the positive rate of CD33 in N-cadherin+ group was significantly higher than that in N-cadherin- group(47.62% vs 0%)(P=0.012). The relapse rate was higher in N-cadherin+ group than that in N-cadherin- group (30.00% vs 0%)(P=0.115). The median survival time, 3-year overall OS rate and 3-year relapse-free survival rate in N-cadherin- groups of adult AML, non-M3 AML, ALL and chidhood ALL paients were superior to N-cadherin+ groups, but the differences were not significant. CONCLUSION: The expression of N-cadherin in bone marrow leukemic cells relates to some clinical features of patients with acute leukemia and to some extent has inferior effect on survival of patients with acute leukemia.

[Expression of Programmed Death Ligand-1 (PD-L1) in Human Acute Leukemia and Its Clinical Significance].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the expression of PD-L1 in acute leukemia patients, and to analyze the relationship of PD-L1 expression with the patients' clinical characteristics and prognosis. METHODS: The expression of PD-L1 in leukemia cells of 75 patients including 59 de novo patients and 16 relapse/refractory patients with acute leukemia was detected by the flow cytometry, the clinical information was collected, and the therapeutic efficacy of de novo patients was analyzed. RESULTS: The PD-L1 was expressed in human acute leukemia cells with total expression rate 32% (24/75), and its expression level in AML-M5 was higher than that in other leukemias [56.3% (9/16) vs 25.4% (15/59)], there was statistical significance (P = 0.019). The PD-L1 possitive rate in relapse/refractory group was higher than that in de novo patient group [(56.3% (9/16) vs 25.4% (15/59)], and there was statistical significance (P = 0.019). In 59 de novo patients, the CR rate of PD-L1 positive group after 1 course of chemotherapy was lower than that in PD-L1 negative group (66.7% vs 71.4%), the CR rate of PD-L1 positive group after 2 courses of chemotherapy was also lower than that in PD-L1 negative group (70% vs 88.6%). The relapse rate and the proportion of refractory patients in PD-L1 possitive group were higher than those in PD-L1 negative group. The expression of PD-L1 did not correlated with the clinical parameters, such as sex, age, extramedullary infiltration, percentage of blast cells in bone marrow, counts of WBC, RBC and platelet, as well as molecular biological features and cytogenetical characteristics. CONCLUSION: PD-L1 is expressed in human acute leukemia cells, and may be involved in the immune escape and primary resistant mechanisms, PD-L1 may be used as an indicator for evaluation of the the patients' prognosis and reocurrence.