Identification and Clinical Evaluation of the Receptor for Hyaluronic Acid-Mediated Motility (RHAMM/CD 168) in AML Patients

RHAMM/CD168 is a cell surface receptor for hyaluronan, a glycosaminoglycan that plays a fundamental role in cell growth, differentiation and motility. It is one of the leukemia-associated antigens (LAA) identified in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. In the present study, RHAMM expression was tested in the peripheral blood samples of 40 de novo AML patients as well as 15 healthy volunteers as a control group by RT-PCR. The mRNA of RHAMM was detected in 24/40 (60%) of the patients while it was not detected in the control group. There were no statistically significant difference between RHAMM positive and negative patients as regard their clinical and laboratory data, although the highest remission rate was achieved in RHAMM positive patients while RHAMM negative patients had a higher rate of adverse treatment outcome (relapse or death during induction chemotherapy. In conclusion, our findings are highly suggestive that the expression of RHAMM in newly diagnosed AML patients is a good prognostic marker as its expression is associated with facourable response to induction chemotherapy. Also being a tumour associated antigen, RHAMM represents a promising target for future immunotherapy.