الفهرس 
ACUTE MYELOID LEUKEMIAOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is a cytoplasmic non receptor protein tyrosine kinase. FAK protein and mRNA transcript were overexpressed in about 42% of adult AML cases. It had been demonstrated to be crucial to the survival of acute myeloid leukemia cells. It was proved by several studies to be a marker of poor prognosis.
Normal hematopoiesis is a multistep process that requires a number of growth factors. Interleukin 3(IL-3) is a multilineage HGF. Tumor cells showed high expression of interleukin 3 receptor α (IL-3Rα) chain (CD123) in the blast cells of the hematologic malignancies in contrast to normal precursors. The IL-3Rα chain was over expressed in about 45% of adult AML cases. It had been demonstrated to be crucial to the survival of acute myeloid leukemia cells. Its overexpression correlated with prognosis and survival.
In our study we analyzed the expression of FAK and IL-3Rα on leukemic cells in 50 newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia and 10 age-matched healthy controls. Fifty percent of cases examined were overexpressing FAK mRNA, FAK protein and IL-3Rα protein. Correlation of FAK and IL-3Rα was studied in relation to laboratory findings and clinical outcome. During the follow up period of 20 months, 39 patients died, and 11 remained alive. It has been found that FAK protein, mRNA transcript and IL-3Rα protein were not overexpressed in normal bone marrow cells obtained from 10 healthy donors. The difference between cases and controls was statistically significant (p=0.001). In our study, a significant correlation was found between FAK mRNA and protein levels (rs=0.997) and between FAK expression and IL-3Rα protein expression (rs=0.949). FAK and IL-3Rα overexpression were significantly associated with elevated TLC (p=0.001), elevated percentage of blasts in the bone marrow (p=0.002) at diagnosis and CD34-ve leukemic blasts (p=0.011). No significant association was found between FAK and IL-3Rα overexpression and early treatment response. However a border line significant association was found with poor over all survival.