Neemat Kassem¹, Khalid Bassiouny², Manal El Hamshari², Hebatallah Kassem¹* and Bassant Nagdy³

¹Kasr Al-Ainy Centre of Clinical Oncology and Nuclear Medicine, School of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt
²Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Institute, University of Sadat City, Cairo, Egypt
³Kasr Al-Ainy Molecular Oncology Department, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt

*Corresponding Author: Hebatallah A Kassem, Kasr Al-Ainy Centre of Clinical Oncology and Nuclear Medicine, School of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.

Received: June 19, 2017; Published: October 18, 2017

Citation: Hebatallah Kassem., et al. “CD47 Expression as a Possible Prognostic Tool in Egyptian AML Patients”. Acta Scientific Cancer Biology 1.2 (2018).

Abstract

Background: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is organized as a cellular hierarchy initiated and maintained by a subset of self-renewing leukemia stem cells (LSC). Increased CD47 expression on human AML leukemic cells contributes to its pathogenesis by inhibiting their phagocytosis through binding of CD47 to signal regulatory protein alpha (SIRPα), an inhibitory receptor that negatively regulates phagocytosis. In AML, CD47 is over-expressed on peripheral blasts, leukemia stem cells and inversely correlates with survival.

Purpose: Estimation of CD47 gene expression in Egyptian AML patients for evaluation of its role in the pathogenesis of the disease and as a prognostic marker related to overall survival (OS).

Methods: The study included 45 AML patients in addition to 20 healthy volunteers as controls. Blood samples of patients and controls were subjected to positive magnetic selection of CD34+ leukemic cells, and then CD47 expression on these cells was estimated by flowcytometry. Quantitative assessment of CD47 gene expression was performed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRTPCR).

Results:Statistically significant difference (P-value < 0.001) between low and high CD47 gene expression was found, where 27 (60%) patients showed high CD47 gene expression levels above the cutoff value with a median of 1.34 (range 1.03 - 1.93), while18 (40 %) patients showed lower CD47 gene expression levels with median level of 0.48 (range 0.08 - 0.97). No significant correlation between CD47 gene expression by RT-qPCR and CD47 surface marker by flowcytometry was found. Also, there was inverse correlation between CD47 gene expression levels and OS where increased expression was also associated with a worse OS (P = 0.0001).

Conclusion: In conclusion, the results obtained by the current study provide additional evidence of the role played by CD47 gene as predictive factor impact on OS and prognosis.

Keywords: AML; CD47; SIRPa; qRT- PCR

Copyright: © 2018 Hebatallah Kassem., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.