Evaluating the expression of ERG gene in acute myeloblastic leukemia in north east of Iran

Erythroblast transformation specific Related Gene (ERG) is a member of ETS transcription factors family, which act as a regulator of primary hematopoietic cell differentiation. Previous researches suggested proto-oncogene for response to mitogenic signal of different cell with MAP kinase and help to tumorgenesis, apoptotic and prognostic role for ERG gene in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients. The aim of his study was to evaluate ERG gene expression level in AML cases compare to control group.

For analysis of gene expression, total RNA was isolated from bone marrow (BM) and peripheral blood of AML `s patient. This study was conducted on 54 AML patients and 54 healthy individuals as control group. ERG gene expression and reference gene glucose-6-phosphate isomerase (GPI) was assessed by using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method. Clinical and laboratory findings studied cases were extracted from medical documents.

This study results indicated that the level of ERG gene expression in AML patients had no significant differences compare to control group (1.81±2.41) (P <0.05), Also ERG gene expression was correlated to patients hematocrit (P <0.05).

This research recommends that there were no significant relation between ERG expression and control groups. It seems that ERG gene assessment is not a good index for AML patient’s evaluation.