Combination therapy using TGF-β1 and STI-571 can induce apoptosis in BCR-ABL oncogene-expressing cells

Abstract

The BCR-ABL oncogene is a tyrosine kinase gene that is over-expressed in CML. It inhibits the TGF-β1 signaling pathway. Due to resistance of cells to the tyrosine kinase inhibitor, STI-571, the combined effect of STI-571 and TGF-β1 on K562 cells was studied in the present research. Results revealed that the TGF-β1 cell signaling pathway, which is activated in K562 cells treated with TGF-β1, activates collective cell signaling pathways involved in survival and apoptosis.

Keywords

• leukemia
• myelogenous
• chronic
• bcr-abl positive
• transforming growth factor beta1
• drug resistance
• apoptosis