LIPOPROTEIN LIPASE (LPL) PROTEIN EXPRESSION IN CHRONIC LYMPHOCYTIC LEUKEMIA: ITS VALUE AS A NEW PROGNOSTIC MARKER

PRIETO DANIEL; MORANDE PABLO; OLIVER CAROLINA; GUILLERMO CECILIA; LANDONI ANA INÉS; GABÚS RAUL; OPPEZZO PABLO

Mar del Plata

Congreso; LIX REUNIÓN CIENTÍFICA ANUAL Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Clínica LXII REUNIÓN ANUAL Sociedad Argentina de Inmunología; 2014

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) is the mostfrequent form of leukemia among adult populations ofCaucasian origin. Its onset and evolution follow a heterogeneouscourse with patients whose survival rangebetween months to decades. Thus, prognostic markersbecome extremely relevant at the time of taking the clinicaldecision whether to treat the patients or not. A number ofefforts have been made towards finding a marker easyto implement in the clinical practice, with the highestconfidence in predicting the evolution of the disease.Until now the most commonly used prognostic markersin CLL have their own different inconvenients, restrictingtheir application as a single prognostic method. Our grouphas demonstrated that lpl mRNA is overexpressed in CLLunmutated patients and that its expression correlates toa poor clinical outcome. Additional evidence confirmedthat this is the most robust molecular marker in CLL. Wehypothesized that the expression levels of LPL proteinreflects the expression of LPL mRNA and that advantagecould be taken on this to predict the clinical course of CLL.We decided to develop a flow cytometry assay based onthe measurement of LPL protein for CLL prognosis in orderto set up a more accessible method for the clinical practice.To this aim we evaluated lpl mRNA expression by qPCRin 30 unmutated and 30 mutated CLL patients, and finallyvalidated a new prognostic method evaluating LPL by flowcytometry. Our preliminary results show that LPL proteinexpression could be used as a prognostic method whichappears to be much less complex and more specific thatother cytometry methods normally used in CLL prognosis,such as Zap-70 or CD38. In addition, this study shows thatevaluation of LPL protein in the leukemic clone constitutesa new and strong prognostic method in CLL. Despite thefact that a greater cohort should be evaluated, this methodappears to provide better prognostic information thanZAP-70 for advanced CLL cases.