Functional analysis of N-cadherin in leukemia microenvironment to develop a new drug for leukemia

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K09649
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Pediatrics
• Research Institution: Mie University
• Principal Investigator: Iwamoto Shotaro 三重大学, 医学系研究科, 講師 (20456734)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 平山 雅浩 三重大学, 医学系研究科, 教授 (90293795)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 小児白血病 / 白血病微小環境 / N-カドヘリン分子

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We investigated whether N-cadherin, one of the adhesion molecules, could play pivotal roles in resistance against anti-leukemic drugs in childhood leukemia. We showed the sensitivity for dexamethasone, not L-asparaginase, Vincristine or Methotrexate, in 697 leukemia cell line with the highly expression of N-cadherin using the neutralizing antibody (GC-4) was increased in cytotoxic assay. Moreover, we developed N-cadherin knock-down bone marrow stroma cell (BMSC) lines to investigate this specific mechanism in bone marrow microenvironment niche model. In next step, we will examine the influence for dexamethasone in the co-culture system using 697 and BMSC with various expression of N-cadherin and to study the molecular mechanism.

Free Research Field

小児白血病