miR-17-92 and miR-203A clusters as predictors of the clinical course of chronic myeloid leukemia

Background. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors are now widely used for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), and disease progression is often linked with the development of resistance to these drugs. There is a need for additional theranostic tools, and they may include expression levels of certain microRNAs (miR).
Purpose: to study expression levels of miR-203a and of miR-17-92 cluster members in bone marrow and peripheral-blood components (lymphocytes, plasma, and extracellular vesicles) from CML patients with various clinical characteristics and treatment responses.
Material and Methods. Blood and bone marrow samples were collected from 56 patients having a CML diagnosis from the City Hematology Center at the government-funded healthcare institution (Novosibirsk Oblast) City Clinical Hospital No. 2 from the years 2016 to 2017. Expression levels of miRNAs were quantifed by reverse-transcription real-time PCR according to the TaqMan principle.
Results. In bone marrow and blood lymphocytes, expression levels of miR-17, miR-18а, and miR-20a were higher in patients in the acceleration phase (FA) as compared to the chronic phase (CF) and in patients with an unfavorable prognosis. In plasma, expression levels of miR-19a and miR-19b were higher in patients with CF compared to the blast crisis (BC) phase and higher in patients with a favorable prognosis. MiR-19a expression was also higher in extracellular vesicles of patients with a favorable prognosis, and miR-203 expression was higher in patients with a favorable prognosis in extracellular vesicles and in blood plasma. Furthermore, miR-203 expression proved to be signifcantly greater in extracellular vesicles of patients who achieved a major molecular response.
Conclusion. MiR-17, miR-18а, and miR-20a in bone marrow and lymphocytes seem to be the most promising for the possible practical application, and the same is true for miR-19a and miR-19b in blood plasma and miR-203 in blood plasma and extracellular vesicles.

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