Received: 22 Sep, 2012 Accepted: 18 Des, 2012

  Background & Aims : Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a hematopoietic malignancy in which chromosomal translocation is involved in indefinite proliferation and resistance to apoptosis. It has been showed that survivin over-expression is associated with poor prognosis and poor response to chemotherapy of leukemia patients. However, there is no comprehensive study about survivin-2a, a novel survivin splice variant, expression especially in CML patients. In this study, we investigated expression pattern of survivin and survivin-2a in CML patients .

  Materials & Methods : Blood samples were collected from 9 healthy people and 30 patients with CML whom had been referred to Shahid Ghazi Tabatabai Hospital of Tabriz. Twenty-four of these patients were in chronic phase (CP) and six in accelerated/blastic phase (AP/BC). Survivin and Survivin-2a expression pattern were evaluated by semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).

  Results : The results showed that survivin expression level in patients in AP/BC was significantly higher than patients in CP as well as normal samples. Survivin-2a was highly expressed in patients in AP/BC compared to patients in CP and normal samples. For example, survivin-2a was expressed in all six patients in AP/BC, while only 4 of 24 patients in CP showed low expression level.

  Conclusion : Attain to results, similar to survivin, high expression level of survivin-2a is correlated with AP/BC phases of disease. Therefore, this splice variant could be used as a diagnostic and therapeutic marker.

  SOURCE: URMIA MED J 2012: 23(7): 827 ISSN: 1027-3727