Expression of Wilms' tumor gene in leukemia and its clinical implication

Objective To evaluate the expression of Wilms' tumor(WT1) gene in leukemia and its clinical implication.Methods Expression of WT1 gene were measured in 39 patients with acute leukemia,5 patients with CML and 22 normal controls by Nest RT-PCR method.Results The expression of WT1 gene increased in 22 of 30 patients with leukemia,and the positive rate was 73.3%.The WT1 gene positive rates in acute myeloid leukemia and acute lymphocyte leukemia were 70.8% and 83.3%,respectively,and there was no significant difference between the two groups.The CR rate was markedly decreased as WT1 gene expression level increased.Short-term follow-up showed that WT1 gene expression level was markedly decreased after complete remission(CR) whereas highly increased when relapsed.Conclusion Monitoring of the WT1 gene by Nest RT-PCR would be a surely marker for the detection of minimal residual disease(MRD) in acute leukemia.