Role of microRNA-486-5p as Biomarker Response in Cell Line K562 of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the efficiency and accuracy of microRNA (miR)-486-5p as a screening and diagnostic tool for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). METHODS: The study was performed on K562 cell line. The cell line of the erythroleukemia type originated from a 53-year-old female patient suffering from chronic myelogenous leukemia during a blast crisis. The cells are non-adherent, rounded in shape, and positive for the BCR: ABL1 fusion gene. In addition, we measured the expression of miR-486-5p in peripheral blood monocytes from healthy volunteers and compared the result with Imatinib treated and untreated K562 cell line. RESULT: As compared to control blood cells from healthy volunteers, there was a statistically significant downregulation of the expression of miR-486-5p in untreated K562 cells (p-value = 0.007). After Imatinib exposure, the miR-486-5p expression was significantly upregulated in K562 cells as compared to treated and untreated K562 cells (p-value = 0.004). CONCLUSION: Numerous reports demonstrate the role of miRNA in acting as oncogenes or tumor suppressors in various cancers. We have reported an alteration in the expression of miR-486-5p in the CML cell line. The upregulation of miR-486-5p expression in the post-imatinib exposure K562 cell line suggests that miR-486-5p has an onco-suppressor effector role in the BCR-ABL downstream signalling pathway. It is possible to investigate miR-486-5p as a potential biomarker for early CML detection.