New discovery: Targeting bone cells better at targeting leukemia than malignant stem cells?

The new study was published Jan.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is one of the most difficult blood cancers to treat

Cancer researcher Stavroula Kousteni, Ph.

Her new research shows that targeting neighboring cells in the bone marrow -- osteoblasts, the cells that make bone -- can turn a leukemia cell-friendly environment into a hostile one

Kousteni's team, led by Dr.

Galán-Díez and Kousteni discovered that the communication between leukemia cells and osteoblasts can be disrupted, pointing the way to new treatments for AML

In humanized mice that harbored patients' leukemia cells and experienced AML relapse, an experimental drug that inhibits kynurenine synthesis "had a significant effect in combination with conventional chemotherapy, slowing disease progression," Galán-Díez said.

In the same study, Kousteni and Galán-Díez observed continuously elevated levels of kynurenine and SAA1 in patients with AML and in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS)

"The advantage of this approach is that it doesn't affect the stem cells that cause the disease

In addition, the same approach can prevent the progression of preleukemic diseases like MDS

Marta Galan-Diez, Florence Borot, Abdullah Mahmood Ali, Junfei Zhao, Eva Gil-Iturbe, Xiaochuan Shan, Na Luo, Yongfeng Liu, Xi-Ping Huang, Brygida Bisikirska, Rossella Labella, Irwin Kurland, Bryan L Roth, Matthias Quick, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Raul Rabadan, Martin Carroll, Azra Raza, Stavroula Kousteni.