[Retinoids and acute promyelocytic leukemia].

Retinoic acid and its analogs, retinoids, have been shown to be useful in the treatment of several types of tumors. Retinoids elicit their biological activities by binding to their specific nuclear receptors, denoted as RAR-alpha, beta and gamma. RAR's have been established to be retinoid-dependent transcription factors which belong to the steroid/thyroid nuclear receptor superfamily. Recently, retinoic acid has been reported to be extremely effective in the treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) giving more than 70% complete remission efficiency. APL has been characterized by the specific chromosomal translocation, t(15;17). Analysis of the t(15;17) breaking point revealed that (i) either RAR-alpha on chromosome 17 or the gene named myl on chromosome 15 is abnormal in APL cells, and (ii) the abnormal fused protein myl/RAR-alpha is expressed, which is suspected to cause the APL. Thus, RAR-alpha gene may be now regarded as one of tumor suppressor genes.