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Prognostic value of the FUT family in acute myeloid leukemia

Cancer Gene Therapy volume 27, pages 70–80 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Genetic abnormalities are more frequently viewed as prognostic markers in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in recent years. Fucosylation, catalyzed by fucosyltransferases (FUTs), is a post-translational modification that widely exists in cancer cells. However, the expression and clinical implication of the FUT family (FUT1-11) in AML has not been investigated. From the Cancer Genome Atlas database, a total of 155 AML patients with complete clinical characteristics and FUT1-11 expression data were included in our study. In patients who received chemotherapy alone showed that high expression levels of FUT3, FUT6, and FUT7 had adverse effects on event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS) (all P < 0.05), whereas high FUT4 expression had favorable effects on EFS and OS (all P < 0.01). However, in the allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) group, we only found a significant difference in EFS between the high and low FUT3 expression subgroups (P = 0.047), while other FUT members had no effect on survival. Multivariate analysis confirmed that high FUT4 expression was an independent favorable prognostic factor for both EFS (HR = 0.423, P = 0.001) and OS (HR = 0.398, P < 0.001), whereas high FUT6 expression was an independent risk factor for both EFS (HR = 1.871, P = 0.017) and OS (HR = 1.729, P = 0.028) in patients who received chemotherapy alone. Moreover, we found that patients with low FUT4 and high FUT6 expressions had the shortest EFS and OS (P < 0.05). Our study suggests that high expressions of FUT3/6/7 predict poor prognosis, high FUT4 expression indicates good prognosis in AML; FUT6 and FUT4 have the best prognosticating profile among them, but their effects could be neutralized by allo-HSCT.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81500118 and 61501519), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (2016M600443), and Jiangsu Province Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (1701184B).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Yifeng Dai, Zhiheng Cheng

  2. These authors jointly supervised this work: Depei Wu, Xinyou Zhang, Lin Fu

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hematology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, 510260, Guangzhou, China

    Yifeng Dai, Tingting Qian, Liang Quan, Xu Ye & Lin Fu

  2. Department of Pathology and Medical Biology, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands

    Yifeng Dai & Zhiheng Cheng

  3. Translational Medicine Center, Huaihe Hospital of Henan University, 475000, Kaifeng, China

    Zhiheng Cheng, Longzhen Cui & Yan Liu

  4. Translational Medicine Center, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, 510260, Guangzhou, China

    Zhiheng Cheng, Tingting Qian, Liang Quan, Jinghong Chen, Jingqi Chen & Lin Fu

  5. Department of Hematology, Huaihe Hospital of Henan University, 475000, Kaifeng, China

    Zhiheng Cheng & Lin Fu

  6. Department of Medicine, William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, MI, 48073, USA

    Yifan Pang

  7. Life Sciences Institute and Innovation Center for Cell Signaling Network, Zhejiang University, 310058, Hangzhou, China

    Yang Jiao

  8. Department of Operations and Information Management, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, 100029, Beijing, China

    Chaozeng Si

  9. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Chinese PLA General Hospital, 100853, Beijing, China

    Jinlong Shi

  10. Department of Hematology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, 215006, Suzhou, China

    Depei Wu

  11. Department of Hematology, The Second Clinical Medical College (Shenzhen People’s Hospital), Jinan University, 518020, Shenzhen, China

    Xinyou Zhang

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Dai, Y., Cheng, Z., Pang, Y. et al. Prognostic value of the FUT family in acute myeloid leukemia. Cancer Gene Ther 27, 70–80 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41417-019-0115-9

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