Overcoming multidrug resistance in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia cells
Saturday, March 20, 2010 - 09:50
in Health & Medicine
Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) most commonly affects children, in whom there is an overall cure rate of 85%. A strong predictor of poor outcome is resistance to chemotherapy with glucocorticoids. Such resistance is caused, at least in part, by an inability of the leukaemic cells to die by a process known as mitochondrial apoptosis. Many researchers are therefore trying to find ways to overcome the block in mitochondrial apoptosis in glucocorticoid-resistant leukaemic cells. Jean-Pierre Bourquin and colleagues, at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, have now identified a way to do just that, showing that this approach resensitises multidrug-resistant childhood ALL cells to glucocorticoids and other cytotoxic agents...