Overexpression of SET and MYND domain-containing protein 2 (SMYD2) is associated with poor prognosis in pediatric B lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia

High expression of SET and MYND domain-containing protein 2(SMYD2) has been reported as a poor prognostic factor for various types of cancer. However, there are little published data about clinical significance of SMYD2 in children with ALL. We used real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect SMYD2 expression in the bone marrow (BM) samples from 134 newly diagnosed children with ALL. Our data showed that children with ALL demonstrated significantly higher SMYD2 expression than control group (p < .001). SMYD2 mRNA expression levels decreased significantly after complete remission. In addition, patients with higher SMYD2 expression had higher white blood cell count (p = .003) and higher percentage of high-risk groups (p = .005). Survival analyses showed that higher SMYD2 expression was associated with worse overall survival and event free survival (EFS) in children with B lineage ALL(B-ALL) and was an independent prognostic factor in multivariate analyses.