[Progress of research on leukemia stem/progenitor cell targeting therapy]

At present, most patients with hematological malignancies are treated with conventional chemotherapy, but the relapse frequently occurs in these patients. It is increasingly recognized that the cause of relapse resides in a small portion of the leukemia stem/progenitor cell population which has self-renewal and multilineage differentiation potential. As traditional chemotherapeutic drugs only kill the majority of differentiated tumor cells and hardly affect the tumor stem/progenitor cell, that is why most of the chemotherapies did not achieve good results. In order to completely eradicate hematological malignancies, intrinsic properties of stem/progenitor cells must be studied and only the therapy targeting this population could make tumor curable. Targeting the surface markers which distinguish the tumor stem/progenitor cells from normal stem/progenitor cells, inducing the tumor stem/progenitor cell differentiation, disrupting the signal pathways and niche which regulate the tumor stem/progenitor cell self-renewal are all probable strategies. This review summarizes recent progress of research on leukemia stem/progenitor cell targeting therapy development.