Analysis of synthetic polymer hydrogel-based generation of leukemia stem cells

Leukemia stem cells (LSCs), capable of simultaneous self-renewal and differentiation, are resistant to chemotherapy and the cause of relapse in refractory cases of leukemia. As a method to rapidly generate LSCs has not been established, research on LSCs as therapeutic targets has been hampered. Here, we demonstrate that K562 leukemia cells acquired LSC properties with increase in stemness markers such as CD34, Oct3/4, and Nanog and metabolic alterations towards OXPHOS by culturing cells on synthetic polymer hydrogels. In this hydrogel-generated LSCs, single-cell RNA sequencing identified the increase in expression levels of AKR1B1 and TSPYL5, which play an essential role for stemness generation. Decrease in expression of CD34, Oct3/4, and Nanog were observed in K562 cells with knockdown of AKR1B1 and TSPYL5. These results indicate that cell culturing on synthetic polymer hydrogels can be a useful system to generate LSCs and AKR1B1 and TSPYL5 may become therapeutic targets for LSCs.