Open Access

ARTICLE

Elevated nuclear phospho-eIF4E body levels are associated with tumor progression and poor prognosis for acute myeloid leukemia

HONG ZHOU^1,*, XIAOFENG JIA^1,2, FAN YANG¹

1 Department of Hematology, Affiliated Hangzhou First People’s Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310006, China
2 College of Life Sciences, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China

* Address correspondence to: Hong Zhou,

BIOCELL 2021, 45(3), 711-722. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2021.014193

Received 08 September 2020; Accepted 21 December 2020; Issue published 03 March 2021

Abstract

Uncontrolled proliferation is a hallmark of cancer cells, yet the molecular mechanisms that contribute to this proliferation are unclear. Therapeutic treatment of cancer is suboptimal in many cases, with no accurate index by which to evaluate the success of treatment or patient prognosis. In this study, we explored the protein levels of nuclear phosphoeIF4E in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cell lines and primary leukemia samples by Western blot and immunofluorescence and as well analyzed transcriptomes by RNA-seq. We found nuclear phospho-eIF4E, an exporter of oncogenic mRNAs, to be abundant in AML. Further, nuclear phospho-eIF4E abundance was significantly associated with tumor burden as well as the response of AML patients to chemotherapy. The results demonstrate “massive clustering and export of oncogenic mRNAs to the translation machinery” by highly abundant RNA-nuclear phospho-eIF4E bodies. This is an efficient mechanism that may drive the proliferation of cancer cells. Herein, nuclear phospho-eIF4E bodies were identified as potential markers of AML, which may be useful for prognosis and as targets for cancer therapy.

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