Open AccessAutophagy in Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia: Stem Cell Survival and Implication in Therapy
Author(s) -
G. Vignir Helgason,
Arunima Mukhopadhyay,
Maria Karvela,
Paolo Salomoni,
Bruno Calabretta,
Tessa L. Holyoake
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
current cancer drug targets
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1873-5576
pISSN - 1568-0096
DOI - 10.2174/15680096113139990088
Subject(s) - autophagy , stem cell , chronic myeloid leukaemia , cancer research , hydroxychloroquine , medicine , tyrosine kinase , myeloid , tyrosine kinase inhibitor , biology , immunology , disease , microbiology and biotechnology , signal transduction , apoptosis , cancer , genetics , covid-19 , infectious disease (medical specialty)
The insensitivity of Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML) stem cells to Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor (TKI) treatment is now believed to be the main reason for disease persistence experienced in patients. It has been shown that autophagy, an evolutionarily conserved catabolic process that involves degradation of unnecessary or harmful cellular components via lysosomes, is induced following TKI treatment in CML cells. Of clinical importance, autophagy inhibition, using the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), sensitised CML cells, including primitive CML stem cells, to TKI treatment. In this review we discuss the role of autophagy in the maintenance and survival of stem cells in more detail, with a focus on its role in survival of CML stem cells and the possibility to inhibit this pathway as a way to eliminate persistent CML stem cells in vitro and in patients.