Expression of the BCL2 gene in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia patients

Abstract

© 2015 University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Science. All rights reserved. Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) manifests as clonal expansion of mature B lymphocytes, whose accumulation is primarily attributed to the dysregulation of apoptosis. Aberrant expression, as well as genetic alterations within various Bcl2 family members and central regulators of the intrinsic, mitochondriamediated apoptotic pathway all hasve been observed in CLL. Here, we report the expression analysis of the anti-apoptotic Bcl2 gene in a cohort of 58 CLL patients. Quantitative reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis revealed a significant overexpression of Bcl2 mRNA in CLL samples compared to control samples (p=<0.001). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that the level of Bcl2 expression exerts a high discriminatory power between patients and healthy subjects (A=0.98, 95% CI=0.95-1.009, p<0.0001).