Mdm2 and Mdmx Are Not the Major Negative Regulators of the p53 Pathway in Myeloid Leukemias.

Abstract 5046

Mutations in the p53 tumor suppressor gene are rare in human hematological malignancies, suggesting that aberrant p53 function may be due to alterations in its regulatory pathways. p53 is negatively regulated by MDM2 through ubiquitin-dependent degradation and by Mdmx through inhibition of transcriptional function. There is little information on the expression of Mdm2 and Mdmx in most myeloid leukemias. We determined the gene expression and protein levels of Mdm2 and Mdmx in bone marrow samples of leukemia patients. We first performed quantitative evaluation of Mdm2 and Mdmx gene expression in bone marrow samples of 144 leukemic patients at the time of diagnosis: 29 de novo AML patients (AML, M0-M7, M3 excluded), 30 de novo AML M3 patients (APL), 39 therapy-related AML patients (t-AML, M0-M7, M3 included) and 46 CML chronic phase (CML-CP) patients in comparison to 35 normal bone marrow samples from Hodgkin's disease patients. Quantitative Real-Time PCR analysis showed no global statistically significant over expression of Mdm2 or Mdmx in any of the tested leukemias. However, a number of patients in both de novo and therapy-related AML had elevated levels of Mdm2 or Mdmx. Significant down regulation of Mdm2, Mdmx and a splicing variant of Mdmx lacking exon 6 (Mdmx-S) was observed in CML-CP. We next performed IHC staining, evaluated by semi-quantitative score, to examine the levels of Mdm2 and Mdmx protein expression in 151 leukemic patients at the time of diagnosis: 40 AML patients, 23 APL, 47 t-AML and 41 CML-CP patients in comparison to 58 normal bone marrow samples from Hodgkin's disease patients. Protein expression analysis also showed no global statistically significant over expression of Mdm2 in any of the tested leukemias. Nonetheless, a number of patients in both de novo and therapy-related AML had elevated levels of Mdm2 protein. Specifically, APL patients segregated into 2 groups: while half of the patients did not express the Mdm2 protein, the other half over-expressed Mdm2. A significant down-regulation of Mdmx was observed in APL. In summary, while in some leukemic patients Mdm2 and Mdmx might play a role in the regulation of p53, our quantitative analysis indicates that these negative regulators do not seem to provoke the inactivation of the p53 pathway in most myeloid leukemias patients. These findings have implications on the possible use of Mdm2 antagonists like nutlin-3 in myeloid leukemias. To the best of our knowledge this is the largest group of myeloid leukemia patients studied for Mdm2 and Mdmx expression.