Associate Professor Kazuhito Naka and Professor Yoshihiro Takihara of Hiroshima University have collaborated with CHA University in Korea and others to analyze the metabolites of CML stem cells that cause the recurrence of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). I found.It is said that suppressing this nutritional supplement mechanism will lead to new treatments.
 The cause of CML is that the hematopoietic stem cells that produce blood become cancerous and become CML stem cells. The treatment results of CML have been dramatically improved by the tyrosine kinase inhibitor, which is a silver bullet.However, when treatment is stopped, it recurs, and patients have to continue taking expensive drugs, which is a big problem.The possible cause of recurrence is the survival of CML stem cells. Because CML stem cells are resistant to tyrosine kinase inhibitors, they are thought to remain and cause recurrence after treatment.There is a need for new treatments to cure CML stem cells to prevent recurrence.

 In this study, CML stem cells were extracted from animals that developed CML and the metabolites produced inside the cells were analyzed.As a result, we discovered that there is a nutrient called dipeptide, which is very high in CML stem cells. It is possible that CML stem cells survived on dipeptides as a nutrient source.Furthermore, we found that recurrence can be reduced by using a drug that inhibits the uptake of this dipeptide in combination with a conventional tyrosine kinase.

 A combination of a tyrosine kinase inhibitor and a drug that inhibits CML stem cell feeding is expected to be a new treatment to reduce recurrence in CML patients.Since the mechanism by which the CML cells discovered this time take up dipeptides does not function in normal hematopoietic stem cells, there is a possibility that treatment can be performed with few side effects.Another big advantage is that it is a therapeutic drug that has already been approved as an antibiotic.

Source:[Hiroshima University] Elucidation of nutritional mechanism of leukemia stem cells-Expectations for development of new concept treatment method to reduce recurrence-

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