microRNAs in acute myeloid leukemia: Expression patterns, correlations with genetic and clinical parameters, and prognostic significance

✍ Scribed by Rotraud Wieser; Marcel Scheideler; Hubert Hackl; Maria Engelmann; Christine Schneckenleithner; Karin Hiden; Christine Papak; Zlatko Trajanoski; Heinz Sill; Christa Fonatsch

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 118 KB
• Volume: 49
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1045-2257
• DOI: 10.1002/gcc.20740

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a malignant disease of hematopoietic cells whose emergence, course, and prognosis is affected by specific recurrent genetic alterations like chromosome aberrations and point mutations, as well as by changes in the expression of certain genes. In the past 2 years, microRNAs (miRNAs)—a novel class of small RNA molecules involved in posttranscriptional gene regulation—have also been shown to be aberrantly expressed in AML. Furthermore, specific miRNA expression patterns were found to be associated with certain genetic and cytogenetic alterations in this disease, and two studies identified miRNAs whose expression levels were predictive of survival. Interestingly, the results of these analyses showed only very limited congruence. This review summarizes published reports on the expression patterns of miRNAs in AML, and discusses possible reasons for the differences in their results. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.