A potential immunological diagnostic marker for acute myeloid leukemia: the expression of the immune checkpoint B and T lymphocyte attenuator

Abstract

Introduction Provided the physiologic tumor suppressive role a healthy immune system has, diagnosis of cancer is sometimes also regarded as a diagnosis of an immune dysfunction. Immunoediting refers to the change of immune system response from tumor protection to tumor promotion, favoring the growth of poorly immunogenic clones that have the ability to evade the immune response. Among the mechanisms by which the tumor cells bypass the immune system is immune checkpoints. Which are immune inhibitory pathways responsible for self-tolerance and limiting selftissue damage by controlling the magnitude and duration of the immune reaction. Objective Studying the expression of the novel immune checkpoint BTLA in patients with AML and evaluate its clinicopathological and diagnostic significance. Patients and methods We investigated the expression of BTLA gene in 60 AML cases and 15 healthy controls using RT-PCR. Results The current study revealed that significant up regulation of BTLA mRNA expression in AML patients as in comparison with the control group (P=0.024). Discussion These results provide a basis for the perception that BTLA upregulation is involved in inhibition of antitumor immunity and that high BTLA expression level can be made use of as a diagnostic marker in patients with AML.