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Review
. 2021 Dec 11;10(24):5805.
doi: 10.3390/jcm10245805.

Shedding Light on Targeting Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Stem Cells

Mohammad Houshmand  1 , Alireza Kazemi  2 , Ali Anjam Najmedini  2 , Muhammad Shahzad Ali  1 , Valentina Gaidano  3 , Alessandro Cignetti  4 , Carmen Fava  1 , Daniela Cilloni  1 , Giuseppe Saglio  1 , Paola Circosta  1
Affiliations
Review

Shedding Light on Targeting Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Stem Cells

Mohammad Houshmand et al. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

Chronic myeloid leukemia stem cells (CML LSCs) are a rare and quiescent population that are resistant to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI). When TKI therapy is discontinued in CML patients in deep, sustained and apparently stable molecular remission, these cells in approximately half of the cases restart to grow, resuming the leukemic process. The elimination of these TKI resistant leukemic stem cells is therefore an essential step in increasing the percentage of those patients who can reach a successful long-term treatment free remission (TFR). The understanding of the biology of the LSCs and the identification of the differences, phenotypic and/or metabolic, that could eventually allow them to be distinguished from the normal hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are therefore important steps in designing strategies to target LSCs in a rather selective way, sparing the normal counterparts.

Keywords: bone marrow microenvironment; chronic myeloid leukemia; leukemia stem cells; treatment free remission.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Possible signaling pathways in CML LSCs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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