• Hossein Ayatollahi, Mohammad Hadi Sadeghian, Mahmood Naderi, Amir Hossein Jafarian, Seyyede Fatemeh Shams, Neda Motamedirad, Maryam Sheikhi, Afsane Bahrami, and Sepideh Shakeri.
• Department of Hematopathology and Blood Banking, Cancer Molecular Pathology Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.
• J Res Med Sci. 2017 Jan 1; 22: 54.

BackgroundThe Wilms tumor 1 (WT1) gene is originally defined as a tumor suppressor gene and a transcription factor that overexpressed in leukemic cells. It is highly expressed in more than 80% of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients, both in bone marrow (BM) and in peripheral blood (PB), and it is used as a powerful and independent marker of minimal residual disease (MRD); we have determined the expression levels of the WT1 by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RQ-PCR) in PB and BM in 126 newly diagnosed AML patients.Materials And MethodsThis study was done in molecular pathology and cancer research center from April 2014 to June 2015, RQ-PCR method was used to determine the WT1 gene expression in BM and/or PB samples from 126 patients of AML, we cloned both WT1 and ABL genes for creating a standard curve, and we calculate copy number of WT1 genes in patients.ResultsA total of 126 AML patients consist of 70 males (55.6%) and 56 females (44.4%), with a median age of 26 years; 104 (81%) patients out of 126 show overexpression of WT1 gene. We also concomitant monitoring of fusion transcripts (PML RARa, AML1-ETO, MLL-MLL, CBFb-MYH11, or DEK-CAN) in our patients, the AML1-ETO group showing remarkably low levels of WT1 compared with other fusion transcript and the CBFB-MYH11 showing high levels of WT1.ConclusionWe conclude that WT1 expression by RQ-PCR in AML patients may be employed as an independent tool to detect MRD in the majority of normal karyotype AML patients.

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