Adverse prognostic value of MYBL2 overexpression and association with microRNA-30 family in acute myeloid leukemia patients

The MYBL2 gene encodes a transcription factor implicated in cell proliferation and maturation whose amplification or overexpression has been associated with different human malignancies, suggesting that it could be implicated in tumorigenesis. We analyzed MYBL2 expression and its prognostic value in 291 patients with de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and we also evaluated its association with microRNAs 29 and 30 families. MYBL2 expression in AML patients was increased relative to CD34+ cells. Moreover, MYBL2 overexpression was associated with lower expression of miR-30a (P = 0.024), miR-30b (P = 0.021) and miR-30c (P = 0.009). Multivariate analysis showed that MYBL2 expression was an independent factor for disease-free survival (HR 3.0, 95% CI 1.5-6.0, P = 0.002) and cumulative incidence of relapse (HR 2.6, 95% CI 1.2-5.6, P = 0.015) in patients with an intermediate-risk karyotype. In conclusion, our data showed that MYBL2 expression analysis could be useful to define subgroups of patients with poor prognosis.