Mutation analysis of ABL1 gene and its relation to the achievement of major molecular response in Indonesian chronic myeloid leukemia patients

Background: Imatinib mesylate is the first tyrosine kinase inhibitor approved for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) therapy. Imatinib is an effective drug. However, previous studies have shown that about 20-30% of patients eventually would develop resistance to imatinib. Approximately 40% of imatinib resistance is associated with BCR-ABL kinase domain mutation. One of the most common and serious variations account for imatinib response is T315I of ABL1 gene. Objective: The study aimed to examine the association of T315I mutation with the ABL1 gene and its relation to major molecular response (MMR) achievement in CML patients. This study also examined other mutations adjacent to T315I, i.e., F311I, F317L, and dif-ferent possible variations in the ABL1 gene. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study on Indonesian CML patients in chronic phase. We analyzed 120 blood samples from patients in chronic phase who have received imatinib mesylate (IM) for ≥12 months. Results: There were no T315I, F311I, and F317L mutations found in this study. However, we found another variation, which was 36 substitutions from A to G at position 163816 of ABL1 gene (according to NG_012034.1). Conclusion: We found no T315I, F311I, and F317L mutations in this study. Our findings suggest that there might be other factors that influenced the MMR achievement in our study patients. However, there were 36 substitutions from A to G at position 163.816 (ac-cording to NG_012034.1) that needed further examination to explore the significance of this mutation in clinical practice.