PNAS: Existing drugs open up new possibilities for the treatment of childhood leukemia

"T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is a devastating disease for affected children and their families.

One of the characteristics of cancer cells is that they have lost the characteristics of cells

In a recently published study, researchers are interested in TET2, an enzyme that removes methyl groups from DNA

The results indicate that the TET2 gene is often silenced by methylation

"We found that a T-ALL cell whose DNA seems to be highly methylated is more sensitive to azacytidine than other cells that are not highly methylated

Since 5-azacytidine has been approved as a drug, researchers hope that the path from preclinical results in the laboratory to the actual treatment of children with T-ALL will be much shorter than the time required to develop new drugs

"Chemotherapeutics have a wide range of effects and can be used in many patients, but they can also kill healthy cells and can have serious adverse effects

This research is still in its early stages

Maike Bensberg, a PhD student at Link? Ping University and one of the researchers in this study, said: "In fact, we can use the drug 5-azacytidine to target the loss of TET2, which makes me wonder This therapy can help T-ALL patients with hope in the future

Funding sources for this research include the Swedish Cancer Society, the Swedish Children's Cancer Foundation, the Swedish Research Council and the Joanna Koza Foundation

Journal Reference :

1. Maike Bensberg, Olof Rundquist, Aida Selimović, Cathrine Lagerwall, Mikael Benson, Mika Gustafsson, Hartmut Vogt, Antonio Lentini, Colm E.