The mechanism of cancer recurrence revealed that cancer cells may enter a dormant state and escape chemotherapy!

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the deadliest of all blood cancers, with 3 out of 4 patients dying within 5 years.

Most patients have recurrence of AML after chemotherapy, which indicates that the disease cannot be cured.

Stem Cell Immunity

A photomicrograph of a bone marrow aspirate from a patient with leukocytosis, showing the original cells of acute myeloid leukemia.

A new study published by Will-Cornell Medical’s scientists in the American Cancer Research Association’s Journal of Cancer Discovery shows that cancer cells can escape chemotherapy by entering a state similar to aging.

Cancer cells can evade chemotherapy by entering a state similar to aging, a type of "active hibernation" that allows them to resist the stress caused by aggressive treatments designed to destroy cancer cells.

The research was conducted in organisms and mouse models made from patients’ acute myeloid leukemia (AML) tumor samples.

"Acute myeloid leukemia can enter remission through chemotherapy, but it almost always recurs.

For many years, cancer researchers have been studying how tumors recur after seemingly eliminated by chemotherapy.

In the study, the researchers found that when AML cells were exposed to chemotherapy, some of the cells entered a hibernation state, or aging state, while at the same time, the cells were in a state very similar to inflammation.

Induction chemotherapy-induced senescence

"These characteristics are also common in developing embryos, where their growth is suspended due to lack of nutrients.

Further studies have shown that this inflammatory senescence state is induced by a protein called ATR, which suggests that blocking ATR may be a way to prevent cancer cells from adopting this state.

This inflammatory senescence state is induced by a protein called ATR, which suggests that blocking ATR may be a way to prevent cancer cells from adopting this state.

diagnosis

Overall, studies have shown that primary AML cells enter an senescence-like phenotype after chemotherapy in vitro and in vivo.

Primary AML cells enter the senescence-like phenotype after chemotherapy in vitro and in vivo.

The effect of aging is not only important for AML, but also for the recurrence of breast , prostate and gastrointestinal cancer.

The research team stated that timing is critical before the problem can be studied in patients, so there is still a lot of work to be done in the laboratory.

Original source:

aacrjournals.
org/content/early/2021/01/25/2159-8290.
CD-20-1375" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chemotherapy induces senescence-like resilient cells capable of initiating AML recurrence .
Cancer Discov January 26 2021 DOI: 10.
1158/2159-8290.
CD-20-1375

aacrjournals.
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CD-20-1375" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chemotherapy induces senescence-like resilient cells capable of initiating AML recurrence in this message