This study was aimed to investigate the effect of AML1-ETO fusion protein on the anti-apoptotic gene BCL-2 in leukemic cells and to explore its role in leukemogenesis. The apoptotic levels of U937-WT, U937-Mock and U937-A/E1-4 cells were examined by flow cytometry. And cleaved caspase-3 protein expression was detected by Western blot. BCL-2 gene expression both in AML1-ETO-expressing cells or U937 nonexpressing cells and in leukemia cells of AML patients with or without t(8;21) was assessed by quantitative PCR. The chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-based PCR was used to investigate the direct interaction between the AML1-ETO and BCL-2 promoter in AML1-ETO positive leukemia cell line. The results indicated that in U937-A/E cells but not in U937-WT or U937-Mock cells, apoptotic cells statistically significantly increased, and AML1-ETO expression also significantly enhanced activation of caspase-3. AML1-ETO-expressing cell subclones displayed significantly low levels of BCL-2 mRNA in comparison with the non-transfected U937. In primary bone marrow cells of acute myeloid leukemia containing AML1-ETO, levels of BCL-2 mRNA were markedly lower as compared with other acute myeloid leukemias lacking this translocation. The enriched regions in transfected cells were located within BCL-2 promoter. It is concluded that BCL-2 is the direct target gene of AML1-ETO. AML1-ETO can down-regulate the expression of BCL-2.