Objective: To study the relationship between the expression of soluble drug resistance-related calcium-binding protein (sorcin) gene and the clinical multidrug resistance in acute leukemia (AL).
Methods: A semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to investigate the transcription levels of the human sorcin gene in 95 AL patients and 27 controls.
Results: Sorcin gene expression was significantly higher in AL patients than in normal contrls (P < 0.001), and higher in relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients than in those newly diagnosed or in complete remission. Sorcin gene overexpression was significantly lower in non-resistant patients than in resistant ones (P < 0.001). CR rates of these two groups were 20.0% and 80.0%, respectively. Sorcin gene expression was higher in AML-M(5) patients than M(2), M(3), M(4) patients.
Conclusion: Sorcin gene overexpression is significantly associated with clinical multidrug resistance and prognosis, it is one of the indicators for predicting prognosis of AL patients.