Source: Cell Press
Date: April 5, 2012
Summary:
Researchers reporting in the April Cell Stem Cell, a Cell Press publication, have found a way to stop leukemia stem cells in their tracks. The advance in mice suggests that a combination approach to therapy might stamp out chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) for good.
The Cell Stem Cell study focused on a pathway known to be important in blood stem cells during development but not in adulthood. The new findings in mice suggest that leukemia stem cells revert back to their dependence on that early developmental pathway.
That leaves leukemia stem cells vulnerable to treatments aimed at the so-called β-catenin pathway in a way that normal blood stem cells aren't. The evidence shows that imatinib plus the loss of β-catenin can help to prevent recurrence of the disease. β-catenin inhibitors given to mice also helped to eliminate leukemia stem cells, as did a pain-relieving drug already in use that lowers β-catenin levels, if indirectly.
