The aim of study was to explore the expression of pituitary tumor-transforming gene (pttg) in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and its relationship with the pathogenesis of AML, simultaneously to investigate the difference of the pttg expression among AML different subtypes. The expressions of pttg mRNA were quantitatively detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR) in bone marrow from 47 patients with AML and 28 normal controls. The results indicated that the expression of pttg mRNA was significantly higher in AML patients [(1.1323 ± 1.3934) × 10(5)] than that in normal controls [(4.5766 ± 1.1817) × 10(3)] (p < 0.05). The expression of pttg mRNA was higher in M(3) patients than that in other AML subtypes, such as M(1), M(2), M(4), M(5). It is concluded that the overexpression of pttg may be related to the pathogenesis and progression of AML, in which the overexpression of pttg may be more intimately related to the pathogenesis and progression of M(3). This study provides a new idea to research the pathogenesis and targeted gene therapy of AML.