Impact of ABCB1 single nucleotide polymorphisms 1236C>T and 2677G>T on overall survival in FLT3 wild-type de novo AML patients with normal karyotype

Drug resistance is a clinically relevant problem in the treatment of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). We have previously reported a relationship between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of ABCB1, encoding the multi-drug transporter P-glycoprotein, and overall survival (OS) in normal karyotype (NK)-AML. Here we extended this material, enabling subgroup analysis based on FLT3 and NPM1 status, to further elucidate the influence of ABCB1 SNPs. De novo NK-AML patients (n = 201) were analysed for 1199G>A, 1236C>T, 2677G>T/A and 3435C>T, and correlations to outcome were investigated. FLT3 wild-type 1236C/C patients have significantly shorter OS compared to patients carrying the variant allele; medians 20 vs. 49 months, respectively, P = 0.017. There was also an inferior outcome in FLT3 wild-type 2677G/G patients compared to patients carrying the variant allele, median OS 20 vs. 35 months, respectively, P = 0.039. This was confirmed in Cox regression analysis. Our results indicate that ABCB1 1236C>T and 2677G>T may be used as prognostic markers to distinguish relatively high risk patients in the intermediate risk FLT3 wild-type group, which may contribute to future individualizing of treatment strategies.