LAUSR

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) continues to have a poor prognosis warranting new therapeutic strategies. The bone marrow (BM) microenvironment consists of niches that interact with not only normal hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), but also leukemia cells like AML. There are many adhesion molecules in the BM microenvironment, integrins have been of central interest. AML cells express integrins which bind to ligands in the microenvironment enabling adhesion of leukemia cells to microenvironment thereby initiating intracellular signaling pathways that are associated with cell migration, cell proliferation, survival, and drug resistance which has been described to mediate cell-adhesion mediated drug-resistance (CAM-DR). Identifying and targeting integrins in AML to interrupt interactions with the microenvironment has been pursued as a strategy to overcome CAM-DR. Here, we focus on the bone marrow microenvironment and review the role of integrins in CAM-DR of AML and in integrin targeting strategies.