A niche play for stem cells

Aggressive hematologic malignancies like acute lymphoblastic leukemia can blight the bone marrow and severely hamper the growth of healthy blood cells. Indeed, following chemotherapy, even the presence of a few leukemic cells can prevent bone marrow transplants from taking hold, thus impairing resumption of normal hematopoiesis.

A paper by a University of Chicagoteam now shows how leukemic cells impair normal hematopoiesis by reprogramming the hematopoietic stem (HS) cell niche, a specialized region at the edge of the bone marrow. The researchers suggest that inhibiting a tumor-secreted protein that lures HS cells toward these diseased niches could help in bone marrow transplantation and recovery from cancer.¹...