Clinical significance of serum prohibitin in chronic myeloid leukemia patients on first-line tyrosine kinase inhibitors

Abstract

Background Prohibitin is a widely expressed intracellular protein that is distributed in various compartments, where they exert different biological functions accordingly. Prohibitins have displayed both protumorigenic and antitumorigenic roles in cancer formation. Depending on the type of cancer and the localization of prohibitin, studies have shown that it exerts a different biological role. Aim This study aims to investigate prohibitin level in Egyptian patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and to evaluate its correlation with disease activity and response to first-line tyrosysine kinase inhibitor treatment. Patients and methods Prohibitin level was measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 80 CML patients in the chronic phase. They were recruited from the clinical hematology division of Internal Medicine Department, Ain Shams University Hospitals. They were matched to 10 healthy volunteers as a control group. Results In our study, we have demonstrated that prohibitin levels were significantly higher in patients with CML than in the control participants (P=0.002). Prohibitin levels were significantly higher in CML patients with an active disease status (P=0.001). In addition, significantly higher levels of prohibitin in CML patients were associated with poor response to first generation TKIs (P=0.001). Receiver-operating characteristic curve was applied. A serum level of prohibitin higher than 289 is a good predictor for poor response to first generation TKIs as per response assessment by PCR for BCR-ABL (area under the curve=0.67, sensitivity and specificity 58.33 and 80.56, respectively). Conclusion Prohibitin is overexpressed in CML patients and has a possible impact on disease activity and response to treatment in CML patients that warrants further investigations.