Unravelling the Role of Stem Cells in Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia and Potential Treatments

Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML) is a disorder of the haematopoietic system characterised by the malignant clonal growth of bone marrow cells, specifically haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), which are capable of giving rise to all lineages of blood cells. In essence, CML is a condition where transformed HSCs give rise to cells of myeloid lineage, e.g. platelets, neutrophils etc, causing them to accumulate in the circulating blood. The aim of this paper was to understand and review the role of stem cells (SCs) and Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs) in CML, current strategies for targeting CSCs, potential targets for CML CSC treatment such as histone deacetylase inhibition, autophagy inhibitors, p53 activation by SIRT1 inhibitors, HIF inhibition, and the regulation of c-myc.