ALDH marks leukemia stem cell

Angela G Fleischman1

  • 1Oregon Health & Science University, USA.

Blood
|April 14, 2012
PubMed

In this issue of Blood,Gerber et al use aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity to further subdivide the CD34(+)CD38(-) compartment in the bone marrow of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients. They identify a unique population with intermediate ALDH activity (ALDH(int)) that contains leukemia stem cells (LSCs). Moreover, persistence of this population after therapy is a marker of clinically significant minimal residual disease.

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