Nature: targeting cancer stem cells or promising to cure acute myeloid leukemia

December 16, 2019 / BIOON / -- recently, in a research report published in the international journal Nature, scientists from Peter McCullen cancer center and other institutions in Australia found a root targeted acute myeloid leukemia (AML, acute myeloid) through research New methods of leukemia) and related research findings may help to develop new therapies for the treatment of malignant and refractory blood cancer Photo source: in the article of National Institutes of health, researchers identified a special target in AML stem cells that can be used to develop new drugs AML stem cells are the key to support the development of leukemia Although these stem cells are very rare, they are the main reason to induce AML to develop resistance to current anti-cancer therapy Researchers mark Dawson said that the current treatment of AML is good at eliminating major cancer cells, but it often leaves very rare leukemic cells, leading to cancer recurrence after treatment At present, researchers urgently need to develop new AML therapy to remove stem cells that cause diseases, which can also accelerate the development of new AML therapy; researchers found that the special protein HBO1 is very important for the survival of leukemia stem cells, when the protein is lost, these stem cells will no longer drive the growth of cancer The researchers point out that the absence of HBO1 will cause the stem cells of refractory leukemia to stop dividing and become less malignant In some cases, they will experience cell death Then the researchers carried out a series of experiments and found that part of HBO1 protein is essential for the maintenance of stem cell function After joint research, the researchers developed a new small molecular compound, which can effectively inhibit the activity of HBO1 in AML cells In the lab, when treating human and mouse AML cells with drugs that inhibit HBO1, the researchers found that the compound could potentially induce anti-cancer effects Finally, the researchers said that this is a very exciting discovery In the future, we may be able to effectively treat AML by targeting leukemic stem cells At present, researchers are carrying out joint research, and they hope that the results of this study can be transferred to clinical as soon as possible, so as to improve the clinical treatment prognosis of AML patients Original source: MacPherson, L., anokye, J., Yeung, M.M et al HBO1 is required for the maintenance of leukaemia stem cells Nature (2019) doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1835-6