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Altered expression of autophagy‐related genes might contribute to glucocorticoid resistance in precursor B‐cell‐type acute lymphoblastic leukemia
Author(s) -
Sarang Zsolt,
Gyurina Katalin,
Scholtz Beáta,
Kiss Csongor,
Szegedi István
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
european journal of haematology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1600-0609
pISSN - 0902-4441
DOI - 10.1111/ejh.12753
Subject(s) - autophagy , glucocorticoid , downregulation and upregulation , biology , gene , phenotype , cancer research , leukemia , programmed cell death , cell culture , immunology , apoptosis , genetics
Objectives Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved process playing an important role in tumor cell's resistance to chemotherapy. Response to glucocorticoid ( GC ) treatment is out of the most important prognostic factors in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia ( ALL ); however, only few data are available connecting GC response and role of autophagy. Our aim was to investigate whether altered expression of autophagy‐related genes contributes to GC ‐resistant phenotype in GC ‐sensitive and GC ‐resistant precursor B‐cell‐type ( PBC ) ALL cells. Methods Gene expression data were obtained from public database for 26 children diagnosed with PBC ALL either sensitive or resistant to in vitro prednisolone treatment. Results We have identified 36 autophagy‐associated genes which were differently expressed, based on at least a twofold difference, GC ‐sensitive group as compared to GC ‐resistant one. Of the 36 genes, 10 were downregulated and 26 upregulated in the GC ‐resistant group. The average fold change values for the decreased and increased transcripts were −4.57 and 2.67, respectively. Conclusions Our data imply that GC sensitivity might depend on the expression of several genes involved in regulation and execution of autophagy in a way that key autophagy inducers are downregulated while inhibitors of autophagy are upregulated in GC ‐resistant cells.