Identification of the Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone (TRH) as a Novel Biomarker in the Prognosis for Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a biologically and genetically heterogeneous hematological malignance with an unsatisfactory risk stratification system. Recently, through the novel single-cell RNA sequencing technology, we revealed heterogeneous leukemia myeloblasts in <i>RUNX1-RUNX1T1</i> AML. Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (<i>TRH</i>), as biomarkers of CD34⁺CD117^bri myeloblasts, were found to be prognostic in <i>RUNX1-RUNX1T1</i> AML. However, the clinical and genetic features of <i>TRH</i> in AML patients are poorly understood. Here, with data from TCGA AML, <i>TRH</i> was found to be downregulated in patients older than 60 years old, with <i>DNMT3A</i> and <i>NPM1</i> mutations, while overexpressed in patients with <i>KIT</i> mutations. This was further validated in three other cohorts of primary AML including Beat AML (<i>n</i> = 223), GSE6891 (<i>n</i> = 461), and GSE17855 (<i>n</i> = 237). Furthermore, we demonstrated that the expression of <i>TRH</i> in AML could be used to improve the ELN 2017 risk stratification system. In conclusion, our preliminary analysis revealed that <i>TRH</i>, a novel biomarker for AML patients, could be used to evaluate the survival of AML.