title: Influence of Bone Marrow Microenvironment on Leukemic Stem Cells: Breaking Up an Intimate Relationship.
abstract: The bone marrow microenvironment (BMM) plays a critical role in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) maintenance and regulation. There is increasing interest in the role of the BMM in promoting leukemia stem cell (LSC) maintenance, resistance to conventional chemotherapy and targeted therapies, and ultimately disease relapse. Recent studies have enhanced our understanding of how the BMM regulates quiescence, self-renewal, and differentiation of LSC. In this comprehensive review, we discuss recent advances in our understanding of the crosstalk between the BMM and LSC, and the critical signaling pathways underlying these interactions. We also discuss potential approaches to exploit these observations to create novel strategies for targeting therapy-resistant LSC to achieve relapse-free survival in leukemic patients.
authors.affiliation: Division of Hematology-Oncology, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
authors.forename: Puneet
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Agarwal
authors.affiliation: Division of Hematology-Oncology, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Electronic address: rbhatia@uabmc.edu.
authors.forename: Ravi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bhatia
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000473:pathology*; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000502:physiology; D060833:Cellular Microenvironment / Q000502:physiology*; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / Q000473:pathology*; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology*; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology
keywords: AML; BMM; CML; HSC; LSC; Niche