Study of Expression of Autophagy Related Gene 5 (ATG5) in Egyptian Patients Newly Diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL)

Abstract

Autophagy is the cellular mechanism for homeostasis maintenance and survival under stressful conditions like hypoxia and nutrient deprivation. It has been explored in various types of malignancies. However, the relationship between cancer and autophagy is still controversial. Researchers have been focusing on the exploitation of autophagy in the invention of new targeted cancer therapeutics. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is one type of malignancies with the highest resistance rates and worst prognosis in adults. Knowing whether autophagy has a role in its initiation or progression would be of a great benefit. It would open the door to the addition of autophagy modulator drugs to conventional treatments to improve the disease outcome. Among all discovered autophagy-related proteins, ATG5 is indispensable for autophagic vesicle formation. Knocking down ATG5 can result in downregulation or total inhibition of autophagy, suggesting that ATG5 plays a central role in autophagy. Thus, ATG5 is one of the most commonly targeted genes in autophagy gene editing assays. It’s expression was found upregulated in different hematological malignancies such as AML, CML and CLL. Moreover, it’s knockdown impaired the proliferation of some kinds of lymphoma.