Disease status in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia is better characterized by BCR-ABL/BCR transcript ratio than by BCR-ABL transcript level, which may suggest a role of normal BCR gene in the disease pathogenesis
Moravcova, J.; Regner, J.; Mouckova, D.; Fiser, K.; Zmekova, V.; Malacova, R.; Michalova, K.; Klamova, H.
Neoplasma 52(2): 119-125
2005
ISSN/ISBN: 0028-2685 PMID: 15800710 Document Number: 594752
Monitoring of BCR-ABL transcript level is widely used in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) to follow up response to therapy. In this study we compare abilities of two quantitative RT-PCR assays to characterize the disease status in CML patients: RT-PCR quantifying the BCR-ABL transcript concentration and RT-PCR determining the BCR-ABL/BCR transcript ratio (R). We demonstrate that in non-responders only R, but not BCR-ABL, unambiguously characterizes the state of disease. Moreover, R values > 1 found in all poor responders indicate lower BCR expression compared to BCR-ABL in these patients. Our results demonstrate the importance of BCR-ABL/BCR transcript ratio for the disease status and the disease prognosis characterization and suggest a possible role of the normal BCR gene expression in CML pathogenesis.