Bolstering fat cells offers potential new leukemia treatment

Indirectly killing cancer cells by powering up fat cells in bone marrow could help acute myeloid leukemia patients. The McMaster-led study was conducted over the past three and half years and started from observations of leukemia patients and utilized bone marrow samples already collected from the London Regional Cancer Program (LRCP) at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) as well as from Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and Hamilton Health Sciences.

Researchers with the McMaster Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute found that boosting adipocytes, or fat cells located in bone morrow, suppressed cancerous leukemia cells but, to the surprise of the research team, induced the regeneration of healthy blood cells at the same time.

The production of healthy red blood cells is critical for those with acute myeloid leukemia but is sometimes overlooked as conventional treatments focus on killing the leukemia cells alone. Patients with this disease suffer from anemia and infection due to the failure of healthy blood production, all of which are leading causes of hospitalization and death from the disease. 

“Our approach represents a different way of looking at leukemia and considers the entire bone marrow as an ecosystem, rather than the traditional approach of studying and trying to directly kill the diseased cells themselves,” said Allison Boyd, postdoctoral fellow with the research institute and first author of the study published in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

To facilitate the study, bone marrow samples were taken from the LRCP 

Leukemia Biobank, as well as from other centers. “At LRCP, 457 patients have provided 831 samples since 2004. We gather the samples at the same time as a diagnostically necessary biopsy to align our research goals with clinical need,” says Dr. Anargyros Xenocostas, Lawson Health Research Institute scientist and hematologist, LHSC, and study co-author. 

The study included detailed imaging of individual leukemia cells compared to healthy cells residing in bone marrow, which revealed the effects of targeting fat cells. A drug commonly used to moderate diabetes that induces fat cell production in the bone marrow was used and was found to help foster red blood cell production as well as suppress leukemic disease.

“The focus of chemotherapy and existing standard-of-care is on killing cancer cells but instead we took a completely different approach which changes the environment the cancer cells live in,” said Mick Bhatia, director and senior scientist with McMaster’s Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute, who led the group that performed the study. “This not only suppressed the “bad” cancer cells, but also bolstered the “good” healthy cells allowing them to regenerate in the new drug-induced environment.”

“This study is a ‘proof of concept’ that can potentially give us a new modality to treat Leukemia,” adds Dr. Xenocostas.

Funding for the study came from the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute and the Marta and Owen Boris Foundation.