Investigation of a novel biomarker, neuropilin-1, and its application for poor prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia patients.

According to the previous studies, numerous biomarkers impact on the prognosis of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and the prediction for AML had been improved tremendously in the past decades. However, accurate risk-stratification at diagnosis or prognosis remained difficult. In order to further investigate the prognosis evaluation biomarker, the transcription or expression of neuropilin-1 (NRP-1) in 87 AML patients and 32 non-malignant controls were examined. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blot were used to detect the NRP-1 expression. Clinical data were collected and analyzed for the 87 AML patients. The results indicated that high NRP-1 expression discriminated the complete remission (CR) rate of AML patients (22.12 % vs. 68.04 % for AML, P < 0.01). De novo AML patients tended to express higher NRP-1 proteins than relapsed AML patients. The overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS) rate of the high NRP-1 expression patients decreased significantly compared with the low NRP-1 expression patients (P < 0.001). NRP-1 was revealed to be an independent risk factor for OS in AML (P = 0.003). In conclusion, NRP-1 could predict the shorter OS and RFS rate, and also related with the CR response in AML. Therefore, NRP-1 may act as a more aggressive and promising predictor for the poor prognosis of AML.