Glivec Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Glivec, including details on gleevec, imatinib, cancer, treatment, side-effects.

Phosphorylation levels of BCR-ABL, CrkL, AKT and STAT5 in imatinib-resistant chronic myeloid leukemia cells implicate alternative pathway usage as a survival strategy.

Jilani I, Kantarjian H, Gorre M, Cortes J, Ottmann O, Bhalla K, Giles FJ, Albitar M

Department of Hematopathology, Quest Diagnostics Nichols Institute, San Juan Capistrano, CA, USA.

Ex-vivo studies have suggested that imatinib-resistance in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients occurs despite adequate suppression of BCR-ABL activity. Whether BCR-ABL phosphorylation levels differ between imatinib-sensitive and -resistant patients is not known. We compared the phosphorylation of BCR-ABL in 54 previously untreated CML patients and 62 imatinib-resistant CML patients with progressive disease. Resistant patients had significantly lower levels of BCR-ABL, CrkL and AKT phosphorylation than previously untreated patients, but STAT5 phosphorylation showed no difference. These observations suggest that imatinib- resistance is not necessarily dependent on higher activity in BCR-ABL-dependent pathways, but is likely due to the activation of other pathways.

Published 22 February 2008 in Leuk Res, 32(4): 643-9.
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