Expression of nuclear transcription factor interferon consensus sequence binding protein in chronic myeloid leukemia correlates with pretreatment risk features and cytogenetic response to interferon-alpha

Recently, it was shown that interferon consensus sequence binding protein ( ICSBP), a member of the interferon regulatory factor (IRF) family, has a po tential role in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Deletion of ICSBP gene in m ice leads to a CML-like syndrome and samples from CML patients exhibited im paired ICSBP expression. The present study found that ICSBP expression corr elated with risk features determined by Sokal score in untreated CML (P = . 007 for high versus low risk). In addition, analyzing ICSBP expression duri ng interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) therapy in "good" (n = 27) versus "poor" (n = 15) cytogenetic responders, high ICSBP levels were only observed in "goo d" responders (P = .0002). Together, these data suggest that ICSBP levels a re related to initial presentation of CML and the therapeutic response of C ML to IFN-alpha, indicating an important role of ICSBP in CML.