The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression feature of a human tumor related gene chp2 in leukemia primary cells and leukemia cell lines, real-time quantitative PCR (RQ-PCR) was performed to detect the expression level of chp2 gene in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 10 healthy individuals (as control) and 24 cases of leukemia, and in 4 kinds of leukemia cell lines. The results showed that the detection rate of chp2 gene in 10 normal controls was 80%, positive expression was (0.744 +/- 0.682) x 10(5) cps/microl. The expression levels of chp2 mRNA leukemia primary cells and leukemia cell lines were significantly higher than that in the normal control (p < 0.05). The expression levels of chp2 mRNA were higher in AML cells (7 cases), CML cells (6 cases), ALL cells (7 cases) and CLL cells (4 cases), and their expression levels were (11.637 +/- 5.588), (6.122 +/- 3.785), (4.262 +/- 2.561) and (3.434 +/- 1.974) x 10(5) cps/microl respectively. Gene chp2 positively expressed in four kinds of leukemia cell lines, and the expression levels in K562 cells, Jurkat cells, HL-60 cells and M07e cells were (5.243 +/- 1.852), (4.463 +/- 1.621), (4.137 +/- 1.837) and (2.578 +/- 1.137) x 10(6) cps/microl respectively. The expression level in leukemia cell lines was higher than that in primary cells. It is concluded that the human tumor related gene chp2 expression in leukemia primary cells and leukemia cell lines significantly increase, which may play an important role in growth process of leukemia cells.