Cancer cells can steal protective proteins from healthy neighbors through microscopic tunnels to become resistant to chemotherapy.
Resistance to cancer treatment is usually blamed on new mutations within the cancer cells themselves. This study shows that leukemia cells use a different tactic by physically connecting to healthy bone marrow cells via tunneling nanotubes. Through these tubes, they import a protein called CD44 that instantly reprograms the cancer cell to ignore chemotherapy. This means that even a cancer without drug-resistant mutations can survive if it has the right neighbors. Blocking these microscopic tunnels could be a new way to make difficult cancers vulnerable to treatment again.
Intercellular transfer of stromal CD44 drives transcriptional reprogramming to promote bone marrow-mediated resistance in chronic myeloid leukemia
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Abstract The bone marrow microenvironment and its interactions with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) are considered key drivers of resistance to standard tyrosine kinase inhibitor-based therapies. Both direct and indirect interactions can activate pro-survival signaling pathways and promote the reprogramming of leukemia cells. However, the precise mechanisms underlying these processes, as well as the specific proteins involved, are not fully understood. Here, we reveal that bone marrow stromal cel