Growing evidence reports that mTOR dysregulation is related to metastatic potential, cell proliferation and angiogenesis and given that PI3K/Akt/mTOR network activation is often associated with poor prognosis and chemoresistance in ALL, there is a constant need to discover novel inhibitors for ALL treatment.
Activation of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt/mTOR pathway as a survival signaling cascade is a prominent feature of cancers such as acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
The frequency of dysregulated PI3K in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) coupled with the critical role of this signaling pathway in the acquisition of chemoresistant phenotype lend compelling weight to the application of PI3K inhibitors for the treatment of ALL.
Thus, implementing FDA-approved PI3K inhibitors in current treatments may potentially improve the GC response and prognosis in patients with MLL-rearranged ALL.
The PI3K/mTOR pathway inhibitors rapamycin, PI103, and PP242 also inhibited activated signal transduction and translational machinery proteins of the PI3K/mTOR pathway, suggesting that signal transduction inhibitors targeting this pathway also may have therapeutic relevance for patients with CRLF2-rearranged ALL and merit further preclinical testing.
We report that inhibition of PI3K/Akt, either by the PI3K inhibitor Ly294002 or by expression of PTEN, synergized the ability of the MDM2 antagonist nutlin-3 to induce apoptosis in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).