Understanding the bone marrow microenvironment in hematologic malignancies: A focus on chemokine, integrin, and extracellular vesicle signaling

ABSTRACT

Signaling between leukemia cells and nonhematopoietic cells in the bone marrow microenvironment contributes to leukemia cell growth and survival. This complicated extrinsic mechanism of chemotherapy resistance relies on a number of pathways and factors, some of which have yet to be determined. Research on cell–cell crosstalk the bone marrow microenvironment in acute leukemia was presented at the 2016 annual Therapeutic Advances in Childhood Leukemia (TACL) investigator meeting. This review summarizes the mini-symposium proceedings and focuses on chemokine signaling via the cell surface receptor CXCR4, adhesion molecule signaling via integrin α4, and crosstalk between leukemia cells and the bone marrow microenvironment that is mediated through extracellular vesicles.

KEYWORDS:

• Bone marrow microenvironment
• CXCR4
• extracellular vesicles
• integrin
• leukemia
• pediatric

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no relevant financial interests to disclose.

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the TACL Operations staff, clinical trial participants and their families, referring physicians and care teams, and TACL member site clinical research teams, faculty, and staff. This work was supported in part by Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the Higgins Family Foundation, the National Institutes of Health (K12 CA090433-14 to Baylor College of Medicine [E.A.S.] and R01 CA172896 [Y.M.K]), Hyundai Hope on Wheels (P.K.), Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (Y.M.K.), and Max Blue Butterfly Campaign (P.K.).

Author contributions

All authors participated in the writing, reviewing, and revising of this manuscript. All authors provided final approval of the version to be published.