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Neoplasms

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

BH3-mimetics; HRI; MCL-1

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Full-Text Articles in Medical Sciences

The Heme-Regulated Inhibitor Pathway Modulates Susceptibility Of Poor Prognosis B-Lineage Acute Leukemia To Bh3-Mimetics, Kaitlyn Hill Smith Apr 2021

The Heme-Regulated Inhibitor Pathway Modulates Susceptibility Of Poor Prognosis B-Lineage Acute Leukemia To Bh3-Mimetics, Kaitlyn Hill Smith

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Anti-apoptotic MCL1 is one of the most frequently amplified genes in human cancers and its elevated expression confers resistance to many therapeutics including the BH3-mimetic agents ABT-199 and ABT-263. The anti-malarial, dihydroartemisinin (DHA) translationally represses MCL-1 and synergizes with BH3-mimetics. To explore how DHA represses MCL-1, a genome-wide CRISPR screen identified that loss of genes in the heme synthesis pathway renders mouse BCR-ABL+ B-ALL cells resistant to DHA-induced death. Mechanistically, DHA disrupts the interaction between heme and the eIF2α kinase heme regulated inhibitor (HRI) triggering the integrated stress response. Genetic ablation of Eif2ak1, which encodes HRI, blocks MCL-1 repression in …