The relationship between MİR-638-5P and acute myeloid leukemia

Acute Myeloid Leukemia is the most common type of leukemia in adults, and is responsible for 20% of children leukemia. Recent studies shows that miRNAs function through multiple genes and are associated with many diseases. miR-638-5p is an important tumor suppressor and associated with clinical features of cancer like tumor size and prognosis. Because decreased miR-638-5p expression is associated with decreased survival rate and poor prognosis in cancer, it is important to clarify target genes. In this project, the effect of miR-638-5p on cell viability was investigated by WST-8 method and its effect on cell death by Caspase-3 method after miR-638-5p mimic was transfected to human AML cell lines by using Lipofectamine. Using in-silico tools like miRWalk, miRDB, Targetscan, miRTarBase, the possible target genes of miR-638-5p were selected from target genes of miR-638-5p in studies with other cancer types, but were not investigated for AML. Expression levels of selected genes (PGK1,HOXA9,PIM1,MECP2,MEF2C,SP1,SPAG1) were investigated by qRT-PCR in miR-638-5p transfected and control cells. Statistically significant suppression of PGK1 and PIM1 was found in both miR-638-5p transfected cell lines compared to control cells. Otherwise, no statistically significant change was detected in the expressions of MECP2, MEF2C and SPAG1. As a result, preliminary findings show that miR-638-5p affect cell viability and cell death in AML cells, may play a role in the pathogenesis of AML by targeting PGK1 and PIM1. It is important to conduct further in-vitro and in-vivo studies at the mRNA level, which may be useful in the management of AML cases.