Expression of Gli1 in Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and Its Clinical Significance

To explore the expression and clinical significance of Hedgehog signaling transcription factor Gli1 in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients.The clinical specimens were obtained from 32 newly diagnosed and 6 relapsed ALL patients. Normal bone marrow cells from 15 healthy donors were used as controls. Real-time qPCR and Western blot were applied to detect Gli1 mRNA and protein expression in bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMNC) of these samples respectively. The relation of Gli1 mRNA levels with clinical parameter was also evaluated.The expression level of Gli1 mRNA in de novo and relapsed ALL patients was significantly higher than that in the normal controls (P 0.05). In 24 de novo ALL patients with complete remission (CR) after induction chemotherapy, the levels of Gli1 mRNA were significantly reduced as compared with levels before treatment (P 0.05). A positive correlation between the Gli1 mRNA expression level and white blood cell count (WBC) was found in the BMMNC of ALL patients (R = 0.725, P < 0.05). Similarly, Gli1 protein expression was significantly higher in the de novo and relapsed ALL cases compared with normal controls. The Gli1 protein level was down-regulated when the ALL patients was in CR.The expression of Gli1 mRNA and protein has been found to be high in de novo and relapsed ALL patients, and the change of Gli1 expression maybe relate to therapeutic efficacy and prognosis of ALL patients.