Comparison of the survival implications of tumour-associated versus cancer-testis antigen expression in acute myeloid leukaemia

We show that elevated levels of MGEA6 may be suggestive of improved survival for a subset of patients. In addition, we have shown, by RQ-PCR, that a distinct population of AML patients expressed elevated levels of the leukaemia-associated antigens G250 and/or PRAME and, by microarray, that the levels of expression of the AML TAAs described here were significantly different between patients and normal donors. The new data presented here and that of Greiner et al (2006) suggest that G250, PRAME and MGEA6 may act as biomarkers of good survival for a distinct population of AML patients. Better definition of the relevance of these 'distinctly high' TAA expressing patients may aid the future use of these markers in prognosis and MRD