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Abstract The organization of the hematopoietic system is dependent on hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that are capable of self-renewal and multilineage differentiation to produce different blood cell lines. Autophagy has a central role in energy production and metabolism of the cells during starvation, cellular stress adaption, and removing mechanisms for aged or damaged organelles. The role and importance of autophagy pathways are becoming increasingly recognized in the literature because these pathways can be useful in organizing intracellular circulation, molecular complexes, and organelles to meet the needs of various hematopoietic cells. There is supporting evidence in the literature that autophagy plays an emerging role in the regulation of normal cells and that it also has important features in malignant hematopoiesis. Understanding the molecular details of the autophagy pathway can provide novel methods for more effective treatment of patients with leukemia. Overall, our review will emphasize the role of autophagy and its different aspects in hematological malignant neoplasms.

Introduction: Apoptosis is an important mechanism in both physiological and pathological conditions. The BCL2 family of proteins plays a critical role in regulation of apoptotic cell death. Up and down regulation of BCL2-like 12 (BCL2L12), a new member of the BCL2 family, has been reported in several malignancies. However, the expression level of BCL2L12 rarely has been studied in leukemia. This study was designed to investigate the mRNA expression of BCL2L12 in patients with acute leukemia. Materials and methods: 90 patients with acute leukemia as case group and 90 healthy persons as controls, were participated this study. RNA was extracted from peripheral blood samples. Expression level of BCL2L12 mRNA was evaluated by a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) method and its association with clinical and laboratory findings was analyzed. Results: The expression of BCL2L12 mRNA was significantly lower in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cases comparing the controls (P<0.001), while it was not significantly different in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) samples compared the control group. In addition, there were higher BCL2L12 level in females (than in males) and in patients with t(12;21) in ALL patients. There was no association between BCL2L12 expression level and other clinical and laboratory findings of AML patients. Conclusion: BCL2L12 seems play a role in the pathogenesis of ALL. Further studies with larger sample size is needed to clarify its probable impact on prognosis and therapeutic response.