Significance and usefulness of DNA methylation analysis for risk stratification in acute myeloid leukemia

Abstract

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a clinically and biologically heterogeneous disease. Currently, genome analysis using next-generation sequencing has made remarkable progress with comprehensive and fusion gene analyses and expression analyses. However, there are still cases in which prognostic factors cannot be identified, and the identification of novel biomarkers in AML is urgently required. An association of DNA methylation patterns and molecular biological abnormalities with prognosis has been reported in adult AML. A few studies have also demonstrated this association in pediatric AML. We investigated the relationships among DNA methylation patterns and their clinical significance, molecular biological background, and prognosis in 64 pediatric patients with AML. Our findings suggest that DNA methylation levels at specific CpG sites indicate genetic alterations and gene expression patterns of pediatric patients with AML. In this paper, we reviewed the importance of DNA methylation analysis in AML, focusing on previous DNA methylation studies on AML and our research.