OBJECTIVETo investigate the correlation between the expression level of PRPS1 and the clinical characteristics in children with acute leukemia(AL).

METHODSReal-time quantitative RT-PCR and Western blot were used to detect the level of PRPS1 mRNA and protein expression in bone marrow samples from 176 patients diagnosed as AL (126 cases were newly diagnosed and 50 cases in complete remission), and its relevance with clinical indicators was statistically analyzed. The bone marrow samples from 21 children with non-malignant hematological disease were used as controls.

RESULTS(1)In B-ALL group, the level of PRPS1 mRNA in newly diagnosed patients were significantly higher than that in control and than that in complete remission patients (both P<0.0001). In T-ALL and AML group, differences was only observed between newly diagnosed patients and complete remission patients(both P<0.0001); (2)In B-ALL group, the expression level of PRPS1 increase with along risk enhancement (P<0.01), while no significant difference was observed in T-ALL (P>0.05). In AML patients, expression difference was shown between low risk group and high risk group(P<0.05); (3)High PRPS1 mRNA expression level were associated with high WBC counts and MRD positive in B-ALL patients (P=0.020, P=0.026, respectively); (4)Expression of NT5C2, an essential gene for relapse and drug resistance, was found to be positively correlated with PRPS1 expression in AL samples(P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONHigh expression of PRPS1 is relevant factor of unfavourable prognosis in B-ALL children, which suggest PRPS1 may be a new indicator for prognosis of pediatric B-ALL and an index to guide individualized chemotherapy.