摘要
Glucocorticoid(GC) steroid hormones are used to treat acute lymphoblastic leukemia(ALL) because of their pro-apoptotic effects in hematopoietic cells.However,not all leukemia cells are sensitive to GC,and no assay to stratify patients is available.In the GC-sensitive T-cell ALL cell line CEM-C7,auto-up-regulation of RNA transcripts for the glucocorticoid receptor(GR) correlates with increased apoptotic response.This study aimed to determine if a facile assay of GR transcript levels might be promising for stratifying ALL patients into hormone-sensitive and hormone-resistant populations.The GR transcript profiles of various lymphoid cell lines and 4 bone marrow samples from patients with T-cell ALL were analyzed using both an optimized branched DNA(bDNA) assay and a real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction assay.There were significant correlations between both assay platforms when measuring total GR(exon 5/6) transcripts in various cell lines and patient samples,but not for a probe set that detects a specific,low abundance GR transcript(exon 1A3).Our results suggest that the bDNA platform is reproducible and precise when measuring total GR transcripts and,with further development,may ultimately offer a simple clinical assay to aid in the prediction of GC-sensitivity in ALL patients.
Glucocorticoid（GC） steroid hormones are used to treat acute lymphoblastic leukemia（ALL） because of their pro-apoptotic effects in hematopoietic cells.However,not all leukemia cells are sensitive to GC,and no assay to stratify patients is available.In the GC-sensitive T-cell ALL cell line CEM-C7,auto-up-regulation of RNA transcripts for the glucocorticoid receptor（GR） correlates with increased apoptotic response.This study aimed to determine if a facile assay of GR transcript levels might be promising for stratifying ALL patients into hormone-sensitive and hormone-resistant populations.The GR transcript profiles of various lymphoid cell lines and 4 bone marrow samples from patients with T-cell ALL were analyzed using both an optimized branched DNA（bDNA） assay and a real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction assay.There were significant correlations between both assay platforms when measuring total GR（exon 5/6） transcripts in various cell lines and patient samples,but not for a probe set that detects a specific,low abundance GR transcript（exon 1A3）.Our results suggest that the bDNA platform is reproducible and precise when measuring total GR transcripts and,with further development,may ultimately offer a simple clinical assay to aid in the prediction of GC-sensitivity in ALL patients.
基金
supported in part by a grant from NCI (No.CA116042) to W.V.Vedeckis
