Question

What are leukemic stem cells and how do they develop into leukemia? What does it mean when they say they are heirarchical?

Answer 1

Properties of leukemic stem cells shows that current chemotherapy drugs will not effective.Because the agents target both the leukemic and normal stem cell populations.New strategies are required that specifically and preferentially target the malignant stem cell population.Some agents are lethal for the leukemic stem cell in clinical testing.Drugs and combinations of various therapies that target the leukemic stem cell population may provide cure for this disease.

During normal developmental progression of stem cell to mature cell, mutations may occur at any point of evolution, giving rise to a malignant entity. A mutation in a normal stem cell may give rise to a unit that could be considered an LSC.By extrapolation, it is observed that differentiated cells with the appropriate mutations may also give rise to the leukemic stem cell.

Subject of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), there is combination about the target cell within the hematopoietic stem cell hierarchy that is susceptible to leukemic transformation, or there underlies the phenotypic, genotypic and clinical heterogeneity.