Telomere length, c-myc and mad-1 expression could represent prognosis markers of myelodysplastic syndrome.

Abstract: Telomere dysfunction might generate genomic instability leading to the progression of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) into acute myeloid leukemia (AML). We investigated telomere length (TL), telomerase activity (TA) and hTERT, c-myc, mad1, and p53 expression in the bone marrow of patients with MDS (n =109), AML (n =47) and in controls (n =24). TL was lower in MDS patients than in controls (p <0.001) and higher in L-MDS (low, intermediate-1 IPSS, p <0.01) respect H-MDS (high, intermediate-2 IPSS, p <0.01) patients. Mad-1 expression was higher in MDS patients than in controls (p <0.01), c-myc expression was highest in AML and in H-MDS patients. Our results show that the telomere dynamics might be useful for stratifying patients according to a risk scoring system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]