Evaluation of MALAT1 gene expression in AML and ALL cell lines

Recently, several long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been identified as being cancer-specific, namely metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1), HOTAIR, and ANRIL. Studies have revealed that MALAT1, is up-regulated in many solid tumors and it have important regulatory roles in cancer biology, metastasis and recurrence. Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are cancers of the myeloid and lymphoid blood cells lines, characterized by the rapid growth of abnormal white blood cells that accumulate in the bone marrow and interfere with the production of normal blood cells. KG1 and Jurkat cell lines cultured in IMDM and RPMI-1640 mediums respectively. Total RNA extracted from the cell lines and normal bone marrow cells and MALAT1 gene expression was measured by qRT-PCR. MALAT1 gene expression was significantly increased in the KG1cell line (P <0.05), while decreased in Jurkat cell line in compare to normal bone marrow cells (P <0.05). Our findings suggest that MALAT1 may function as novel biomarker for diagnosis, prognosis, metastasis, and predicting the response to therapy for the aforementioned types of cancers.