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Credit: UC San Diego Health Sciences Since stem cells can continually self-regenerate, making more stem cells, and differentiate into many different specialized cell types, they play an important role in our development and health. But there can also be a dark side stem cells can sometimes become cancer stem cells, proliferating out of control and leading to blood cancers, such as leukemia and multiple myeloma. The self-renewing nature of cancer stem cells makes them particularly hard to eradicate, and they re often the reason a blood cancer reoccurs. Researchers at UC San Diego Health and University of California San Diego School of Medicine are working to understand what pushes pre-cancer stem cells to transform into cancer stem cells and are developing ways to stop that switch. ....
Designer DNA Helps Treat Multiple Myeloma in Mice by Angela Mohan on January 21, 2021 at 12:20 PM Targeted approach helps to treat myeloma by silencing IRF4, a gene that allows myeloma stem cells and tumor cells to proliferate and survive. Past studies have shown that high IRF4 levels are associated with lower overall survival rates for patients with the disease, as per the team of researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Ionis Pharmaceuticals. Many patients with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, eventually develop resistance to one treatment after another. That s in part because cancer stem cells drive the disease cells that continually self-renew. If a therapy can t completely destroy these malignant stem cells, the cancer is likely to keep coming back. ....
Antisense Oligo Targets IRF4 Gene to Treat Multiple Myeloma Source: OGphoto/Getty Images January 21, 2021 Scientists at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Ionis Pharmaceuticals are taking a new, targeted approach to the treatment of myeloma: silencing IRF4, a gene that allows myeloma stem cells and tumor cells to proliferate and survive. Past studies have shown that high IRF4 levels are associated with lower overall survival rates for patients with the disease. Cell Stem Cell, the team reports on their work which involved inhibiting IRF4 with an antisense oligonucleotide, an engineered piece of DNA specifically designed to bind the genetic material coding for IRF4, causing it to degrade. The oligonucleotide, an investigational antisense medicine developed by Ionis and known as ION251, lowered disease burden, reduced myeloma stem cell abundance, and increased survival of mice bearing human myeloma, according to preclinical study data. ....
E-Mail Many patients with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, eventually develop resistance to one treatment after another. That s in part because cancer stem cells drive the disease cells that continually self-renew. If a therapy can t completely destroy these malignant stem cells, the cancer is likely to keep coming back. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Ionis Pharmaceuticals are taking a new, targeted approach to myeloma treatment silencing IRF4, a gene that allows myeloma stem cells and tumor cells to proliferate and survive. Past studies have shown that high IRF4 levels are associated with lower overall survival rates for patients with the disease. ....