The origin of relapse in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is thought to be due to drug-promoted mutagenesis or to the selection of drug-resistant cells. Shlush et al. provide evidence for the latter and propose at least two distinct patterns of relapse in AML. In some patients, relapse can occur from a small subpopulation of a genetically diverse pool of leukaemia stem cells already present at diagnosis. In other patients, relapse can occur from larger subpopulations of phenotypically committed leukaemia cells that have a stem cell-like transcriptional signature. This shows that targeting stem cell properties is crucial to prevent relapse.
References
Shlush, L. I. et al. Tracing the origins of relapse in acute myeloid leukaemia to stem cells. Nature 547, 104–108 (2017)
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Harjes, U. Multiple origins of relapse. Nat Rev Cancer 17, 453 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc.2017.67
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc.2017.67