Eating away at leukemia

Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicinehave found that acute myelogenous leukemia stem cells can exploit the cell-surface protein CD47 to avoid ingestion by macrophages.^1,2 They show that a mAb against CD47 increased phagocytosis of the stem cells and prevented their engraftment in mice.

CD47 is a widely expressed cell-surface protein that can interact with signal-regulatory protein-a (SIRPA; SIRPa) on macrophages. Normal cells express the immunoglobulin-like CD47 protein to protect themselves from phagocytosis...