Prognostic Value of MicroRNA-20b in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

• Main Authors: Zhiheng Cheng, Yifeng Dai, Wenhui Huang, Qingfu Zhong, Pei Zhu, Wenjuan Zhang, Zhihua Wu, Qing Lin, Huoyan Zhu, Longzhen Cui, Tingting Qian, Cong Deng, Lin Fu, Yan Liu, Tiansheng Zeng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-02-01
• Series: Frontiers in Oncology
• Subjects: acute myeloid leukemia; miR-20b; allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation; chemotherapy; prognosis
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fonc.2020.553344/full

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a highly heterogeneous disease that requires fine-grained risk stratification for the best prognosis of patients. As a class of small non-coding RNAs with important biological functions, microRNAs play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of AML. To assess the prognostic impact of miR-20b on AML in the presence of other clinical and molecular factors, we screened 90 AML patients receiving chemotherapy only and 74 also undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. In the chemotherapy-only group, high miR-20b expression subgroup had shorter event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS, both P < 0.001); whereas, there were no significant differences in EFS and OS between high and low expression subgroups in the allo-HSCT group. Then we divided all patients into high and low expression groups based on median miR-20b expression level. In the high expression group, patients treated with allo-HSCT had longer EFS and OS than those with chemotherapy alone (both P < 0.01); however, there were no significant differences in EFS and OS between different treatment subgroups in the low expression group. Further analysis showed that miR-20b was negatively correlated with genes in “ribosome,” “myeloid leukocyte mediated immunity,” and “DNA replication” signaling pathways. ORAI2, the gene with the strongest correlation with miR-20b, also had significant prognostic value in patients undergoing chemotherapy but not in the allo-HSCT group. In conclusion, our findings suggest that high miR-20b expression is a poor prognostic indicator for AML, but allo-HSCT may override its prognostic impact.