Influence Of Expression Levels Of ATP-Binding-Cassette Transporters (ABC-B1, ABC-G2) On Survival Outcome In Adults Patients With Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Drug resistance is a major obstacle in the successful treatment and an important cause of death in acute leukemia. One of the well-known genes responsable for drug resistance are ABC-B1 and ABC-G2. The association of transcript levels with survival outcome has not systematically been investigated in mexican adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients. We therefore applied real-time RT-PCR technology to study the association between the ABC-B1 and ABC-G2 genes with overall survival in mexican adults leukemia patients. A total of 36 patients were analyzed at diagnosis and followed for 25 months to assess their development and survival. The 57% were female, mean age at diagnosis was 33.5 years (19-78 years), 60% of patients were positive for gene expression ABC-B1 and 78% for ABC-G2. When performing quantitative analysis of ABC-B1 expression, those with high levels (> 1.0) had worse clinical behavior (P = 0.007) and death (P = <.001). We found no statistical significance with ABC-G2. The data suggest that higher expression levels of ABC-B1 gene contributes to the poor outcome of adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.