Study of T cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain 3 expression profile in peripheral blood and bone marrow of human acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a malignancy with aggressive tumors of immature lymphocytes. T‑cell immunoglobulin and mucin‑domain 3 (TIM‑3) is a Type I transmembrane glycoprotein which is involved in cell proliferation. The objective of this research is to determine the TIM‑3 expression in peripheral blood (PB) and bone marrow (BM) of 80 samples of normal and ALL patients.

The amount of mRNA and protein of TIM‑3 measured in the BM and PB the mononuclear layer of samples by real‑time polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting.

Our findings indicated that relative mRNA expression of TIM‑3 in PB and BM of the mononuclear layer of ALL patients was 1.7 and 5 times higher than normals, respectively. We also reported that the protein level of TIM‑3 in mononuclear cells of ALL patients was 3.2‑fold in BM and two‑fold in PB more than normals.

In conclusion, this study shows that TIM‑3 increases in ALL patients, thus the expression of TIM‑3 in tumor cells may be considered as a potential predictive factor in ALL patients, which needs to be explored in future.