aml is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow, and the most common type of acute leukemia in adults. as an acute cancer, it gets worse fast if it is not treated,
according to the national cancer institute.
only 23 per cent of people diagnosed with aml will live for at least five years after the diagnosis,
the canadian cancer society says
. it’s one of the rarer blood cancers, with 1,090 canadians diagnosed in 2016, according to the most recent statistics, and 1,184 canadians dying from the disease in 2017. although the exact cause of aml isn’t known, risk factors include certain genetic conditions like blood disorders, smoking and high doses of radiation.
experts and patient advocates say the treatments and support for people diagnosed with aml have improved dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years, and there is hope.
in the liu laboratory, liu and his team have discovered a way to target and knock out leukemia stem cells without harming other healthy cells in the body.
“to cure leukemia, you have to target the leukemia stem cells. that’s our concept,” liu says. “you have to find a key regulator for the leukemia stem cell function that doesn’t affect normal stem cell function.”
previous research has pinpointed proteins known as flt3 and prl2 in fast-growing aml cells, but liu has identified exactly how the prl2 protein promotes aml cell proliferation and survival.
for the study,
recently published in the journal blood
, liu’s team blocked prl2 in mice that were transplanted with aml cells, showing that inhibiting the prl2 activity actually decreased the cancer and extended overall survival in the mice. further biochemical studies also demonstrated that prl2 increases the activity of the problematic flt3 protein as well in aml progression.
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