PIM-1 mRNA expression is a potential prognostic biomarker in acute myeloid leukemia

Abstract Background High expression of proviral integration site for Moloney murine leukemia virus-1 (PIM-1), a serine/threonine kinase, is associated with many cancers. The main purpose of this study were to investigate that the correlation between PIM-1 mRNA levels and clinicopathologic features and its clinical significance in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Methods qRT-PCR was performed for 118 de novo AML and 20 AML complete remission patients and 15 normal individuals. All statistical analysis were performed using Graphpad Prism5 software. Results We observed that expression of PIM-1 mRNA was higher in AML patients than in healthy individuals and in complete remission AML patients (P = 0.0177). Further, high PIM-1 mRNA levels were more associated with high-risk FLT3+ AML patients than the FLT3− group (P = 0.0001) and were also associated with clinical factors such as risk stratification (P = 0.0029) and vital status (P = 0.0322). Kaplan–Meier survival analysis indicated that PIM-1 mRNA expression correlated with overall survival (OS), disease free survival (DFS), and relapse rate (RR) in AML patients. Most importantly, the high PIM-1-expressing patients took longer to achieve complete remission than the low expression group (P = 0.001). In addition, the complete remission rate was significantly lower in the high PIM-1 group (P = 0.0277) after induction therapy. Conclusions Above results suggest that PIM-1 mRNA levels may be an independent prognostic factor in AML.