title: Chronic myeloid leukemia: proving ground for cancer stem cells.
abstract: A central question in cancer biology is whether malignancy arises in self-renewing tissue stem cells that suffer oncogene activation or in differentiated cells that acquire properties of unremitting self-renewal? In two papers, Weissman and colleagues document both mechanisms: chronic leukemia arising by mutation affecting the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) and acute leukemia evolving from committed granulocyte-macrophage progenitors that have acquired the self-renewal machinery of HSCs.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Children's Hospital, Boston, Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: George Q
authors.initials: GQ
authors.lastname: Daley
mesh_terms: D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D015464:Leukemia, Myelogenous, Chronic, BCR-ABL Positive / Q000209:etiology / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D009154:Mutation; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000378:metabolism*