Prosurvival kinase PIM2 is a therapeutic target for eradication of chronic myeloid leukemia stem cells
Authors
Ma, LeyuanPak, Magnolia L.
Ou, Jianhong
Yu, Jun
St Louis, Pamela
Shan, Yi
Hutchinson, Lloyd
Li, Shaoguang
Brehm, Michael A.
Zhu, Lihua Julie
Green, Michael R.
UMass Chan Affiliations
Department of PathologyDepartment of Medicine, Division of Hematology Oncology,
Program in Molecular Medicine
Department of Molecular, Cell and Cancer Biology
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2019-05-21Keywords
BCR-ABLCML stem cells
PIM2
imatinib resistance
targeted therapy
Biochemistry
Cancer Biology
Cell Biology
Enzymes and Coenzymes
Hemic and Lymphatic Diseases
Neoplasms
Therapeutics
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
A major obstacle to curing chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is the intrinsic resistance of CML stem cells (CMLSCs) to the drug imatinib mesylate (IM). Prosurvival genes that are preferentially expressed in CMLSCs compared with normal hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) represent potential therapeutic targets for selectively eradicating CMLSCs. However, the discovery of such preferentially expressed genes has been hampered by the inability to completely separate CMLSCs from HSCs, which display a very similar set of surface markers. To overcome this challenge, and to minimize confounding effects of individual differences in gene expression profiles, we performed single-cell RNA-seq on CMLSCs and HSCs that were isolated from the same patient and distinguished based on the presence or absence of BCR-ABL. Among genes preferentially expressed in CMLSCs is PIM2, which encodes a prosurvival serine-threonine kinase that phosphorylates and inhibits the proapoptotic protein BAD. We show that IM resistance of CMLSCs is due, at least in part, to maintenance of BAD phosphorylation by PIM2. We find that in CMLSCs, PIM2 expression is promoted by both a BCR-ABL-dependent (IM-sensitive) STAT5-mediated pathway and a BCR-ABL-independent (IM-resistant) STAT4-mediated pathway. Combined treatment with IM and a PIM inhibitor synergistically increases apoptosis of CMLSCs, suppresses colony formation, and significantly prolongs survival in a mouse CML model, with a negligible effect on HSCs. Our results reveal a therapeutically targetable mechanism of IM resistance in CMLSCs. The experimental approach that we describe can be generally applied to other malignancies that harbor oncogenic fusion proteins or other characteristic genetic markers.Source
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 May 21;116(21):10482-10487. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1903550116. Epub 2019 May 8. Link to article on publisher's site
DOI
10.1073/pnas.1903550116Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/44392PubMed ID
31068472Related Resources
ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1073/pnas.1903550116