Akashi Koichi
Department of Medicine and Biosystemic Sciences, Kyushu University Graduate School of Medicine, 3-1-1 Maidashi, Higashi-Ku, Fukuoka, 812-8582, Japan
Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) is derived from self-renewing leukemic stem cells (LSCs). We found that T-cell immunoglobulin mucin-3 (TIM-3) is expressed on LSCs in most types of primary AML, except for acute promyelocytic leukemia (M3 by the FAB classification). TIM-3 is not expressed in normal hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). In a xenogeneic transplantation system, we showed that targeting of TIM-3 by an anti-TIM-3 cytotoxic antibody is sufficient to eradicate human AML LSCs without affecting normal human hematopoiesis. These data strongly suggest that TIM-3 is a promising therapeutic target to cure AML patients.
急性髓系白血病（AML）起源于自我更新的白血病干细胞（LSC）。我们发现，除急性早幼粒细胞白血病（FAB分类为M3）外，大多数原发性AML的LSC上均表达T细胞免疫球蛋白黏蛋白-3（TIM-3）。TIM-3在正常造血干细胞（HSC）中不表达。在异种移植系统中，我们表明用抗TIM-3细胞毒性抗体靶向TIM-3足以根除人类AML LSC，而不影响正常人类造血。这些数据强烈表明，TIM-3是治愈AML患者的一个有前景的治疗靶点。
