Development of novel immune therapy for acute myeloid leukemia -Targeting immune checkpoint blockades and development of CAR-T cell therapy for acute myeloid leukemia

Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) treatment has remained unchanged for decades and 5-year survival rate for AML is unsatisfactory. Mutations in the tyrosine kinase receptor FLT3 are detected in 25-30% of AML patients. The most common mutation is FLT3-ITD, which is associated with inferior clinical outcome, which involves immune escape by an unknown mechanism. We recently discovered that primary FLT3-ITD positive AML cells are strongly dependent upon HSP90 for their survival. Our preliminary data also show that HSP90 promotes cell surface expression of immune checkpoint proteins, including PD-L1. This strongly suggests that HSP90 contributes to immune escape of FLT3-I