Clinical outcome and gene- and microRNA-expression profiling according to the Wilms tumor 1 (WT1) single nucleotide polymorphism rs16754 in adult de novo cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia: a Cancer and Leukemia Group B study

Background The alleles of the Wilms tumor 1 (WT1) polymorphism rs16754 harbor adenine (A) or guanine (G). Recently, rs16754 has been reported to affect the outcome of patients with cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia. To validate this finding, we investigated pretreatment features and outcome associated with rs16754 in a large cohort of patients with cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia.Design and Methods Four-hundred and thirty-three intensively treated and molecularly characterized cytogenetically normal patients with de novo acute myeloid leukemia (18–83 years old) were analyzed for rs16754. To gain biological insights, we studied the gene- and microRNA-expression profiles for associations with rs16754.Results Three-hundred and nine (71%) patients were homozygous for A (WT1AA), 112 (26%) were heterozygous (WT1AG) and 12 (3%) were homozygous for G (WT1GG). For comparison with previous studies, we grouped WT1AG and WT1GG patients and compared them with WT1AA patients divided into younger (