Expression of T-cell immunoglobulin mucin-3 gene in acute leukemia and its clinical significance

Abstract

Objective To investigate the expression of T-cell immunoglobulin mucin-3 (Tim-3) gene in acute leukemia (AL) patients and cell lines, and to find its clinical significance. Methods 8 kinds of AL cell lines, 65 initial AL patients and 15 healthy donors were included. DNA was extracted from the separation of mononuclear cells, and Tim-3 mRNA expression was analyzed by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). The expression of Tim-3 in different cell lines and the relationships between Tim-3 expression and characteristics of patients were analyzed. Results The expression levels of Tim-3 in NB4, Kasumi-1, HL60, SHI-1, THP-1, Jurkat, CCRF-CEM and Mutz-1 cell lines were (4.51±0.62) × 10-5, (79.22± 2.91) × 10-5, (41.14±3.01) × 10-5, (27.70±3.50) × 10-5, (60.47±4.97) × 10-5, (10.44±1.77) × 10-5, (42.80±2.95) × 10-5 and (11.68±1.96) × 10-5, respectively. The expression levels of Tim-3 mRNA were higher in non-M3 cell lines (Kasumi-1, HL60, Jurkat SHI-1, THP-1, CCRF-CEM, Mutz-1) than that in M3 cell line (NB4) (all P 0.05). Tim-3 expression level was significantly increased in AML-M4 patients compared with in other non-M3 AML patients according to FAB typing (P 0.05). Conclusion Tim-3 mRNA expression level is high in non-M3 AL and cell lines , which may have no significant correlation with clinical characteristics including sex, age and bone marrow blast percentage. Key words: T-cell immunoglobulin mucin-3; Leukemia, acute; Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction; Clinical characteristics