Background (or purpose): Inflammation has an essential role in the pathogenesis of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Its expression is controlled by phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4). Thus, PDE4 inhibitors might be useful therapeutic targets for MDS.
Patients (or materials) and methods: We evaluated the expression of each isoform of PDE4 (A, B, C, and D) using transcriptomic profiling and examined the potential impact on the outcome of patients with MDS in terms of survival and response to hypomethylating agents. Total RNA was extracted from CD34(+) bone marrow hematopoietic cells from healthy individuals (n = 10) and patients with MDS (n = 24) or chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (n = 19).
Results: The study cohort had a median follow-up period of 21.2 months (range, 0.2-68 months) and a median overall survival of 17.6 months (95% confidence interval, 9.6-25.6). The main finding of the present study was that PDE4 mean expression was generally higher in patients with MDS than in healthy individuals. Also, upregulated PDE4 expression seemed to have a possible negative effect on survival (P > .05). Moreover, lower, compared with higher, mean PDE4A and PDE4C expression is indicative of a response to a hypomethylating agent (0.09 and 0.03 vs. 0.54 and 0.49, respectively; P > .05).
Conclusion: These results should be confirmed in a larger patient cohort. PDE4 expression could be an effective potential prognostic factor and therapeutic target for patients with MDS and chronic myelomonocytic leukemia. The role of PDE4 inhibitors should be explored in vitro against MDS cell lines and in preclinical mouse models of MDS.
Keywords: Chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML); Inflammation; Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS); Phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4); Prognosis.
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