Prognostic significance of Spinster homolog gene family in acute myeloid leukemia

Wenhui Huang; Tingting Qian; Zhiheng Cheng; Tiansheng Zeng; Chaozeng Si; Chaojun Liu; Cong Deng; Xu Ye; Yan Liu; Longzhen Cui; Lin Fu

doi:10.7150/jca.44766

Prognostic significance of Spinster homolog gene family in acute myeloid leukemia

J Cancer. 2020 May 18;11(15):4581-4588. doi: 10.7150/jca.44766. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Wenhui Huang^{1

2

3}, Tingting Qian^{1

2

3}, Zhiheng Cheng⁴, Tiansheng Zeng^{1

2

3}, Chaozeng Si⁵, Chaojun Liu⁶, Cong Deng⁷, Xu Ye¹, Yan Liu⁸, Longzhen Cui^{8

9}, Lin Fu^{1

2

3

8

9}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Hematology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510260, China.
² Translational Medicine Center, State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510260, China.
³ Guangdong Provincial Education Department Key Laboratory of Nano-Immunoregulation Tumor Microenvironment, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510260, China.
⁴ Department of Pathology and Medical Biology, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.
⁵ Information Center, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, 100029, China.
⁶ Yinfeng Gene Technology Co., Ltd.; No.1109, Gangxing 3 Rd,New and High-tech Zone, Jinan City, Shandong Province, 250102, China.
⁷ Department of Clinical laboratory, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510260, China.
⁸ Translational Medicine Center, Huaihe Hospital of Henan University, Kaifeng, 475000, China.
⁹ Department of Hematology, Huaihe Hospital of Henan University, Kaifeng, 475000, China.

Abstract

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a clonal and heterogeneous disease characterized by proliferation of immature myeloid cells, with impaired differentiation and maturation. Spinster homolog (SPNS) is a widely distributed transmembrane transporter, which assists sphingolipids in playing their roles through the cell membrane. However, the expression and clinical implication of the SPNS family has not been investigated in AML. From the Cancer Genome Atlas database, a total of 155 AML patients with complete clinical characteristics and SPNS1-3 expression data were contained in our study. In patients who received chemotherapy only, high expressions of SPNS2 and SPNS3 had adverse effects on event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS) (all P<0.05). However, in the allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) group, we only found a significant difference in OS between the high and low SPNS3 expression groups (P=0.001), while other SPNS members showed no effect on survival. Multivariate analysis indicated that high SPNS2 expression was an independent risk factor for both EFS and OS in chemotherapy patients. The results confirmed that high expression of SPNS2 and SPNS3 were poor prognostic factors, and the effect of SPNS2 can be neutralized by allo-HSCT.

Keywords: SPNS2; Acute myeloid leukemia; Prognosis; SPNS1; SPNS3.