Clinical significance of BCL2L10 expression and promoter methylation in myelodysplastic syndrome

ObjectiveTo investigate the clinical significance of BCL2L10 expression and promoter methylation status in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Methods andnbsp;Real-time PCR was performed to detect the expression level of BCL2L10 in bone marrow specimens from 56 MDS patients and 30 non-leukemia control patients. According to the results of International Prognostic Scoring System-Revised (IPSS-R), the MDS patients were divided into low/medium risk group (IPSS-R score ≤4.5, n=33) and high-risk MDS group (IPSS-R score >4.5, n=23). Methylation specific PCR (MSP) was employed to analyze the methylation status of the promoter region of BCL2L10 gene. The relationship of the expression level of BCL2L10 with prognosis was analyzed in the subjects of these MDS patients and those from the GEPIA database. Results andnbsp;The expression of BCL2L10 was significantly lower in the MDS patients than the non-leukemia control group (P＞0.05), and the level in the high-risk MDS subgroup was obviously lower than that in the non-leukemia control group and the low/moderate risk MDS subgroup (P＞0.05). The expression of BCL2L10 was regulated by methylation. The positive rate of methylation in BCL2L10 gene promoter was remarkably higher in the high-risk MDS patients than the non-leukemia control group (56.52% vs 36.67%, P＞0.05) and the low/moderate risk subgroup (56.52% vs 30.30%, P＞0.05). The methylation status of BCL2L10 gene promoter was closely related to the risk stratification of MDS patients (Chi-square=5.79, P＞0.05). But age and sex had no such significant difference with (P＞0.05). Among the 24 patients who were not treated with methylation drugs, the 3-year survival rate of patients with high expression of BCL2L10 was lower than that of patients with low expression of BCL2L10 (83.3% vs 50.0%). For the subjects from the GEPIA database, those with lower BCL2L10 expression level had poorer prognosis than those with higher expression, but there was no statistical difference (P＞0.05). Conclusion andnbsp;The expression of BCL2L10 gene and its methylation status can be used as one of the indexes of prognosis in MDS.