Elastic Microstructures: Combining Biochemical, Mechanical, and Topographical Cues for the Effective Activation and Proliferation of Cytotoxic T Cells.

The ex vivo activation and proliferation of cytotoxic T cells are critical steps in adoptive immunotherapy. Today, T cells are activated by stimulation with antibody-coated magnetic beads, traditionally used for cell separation. Yet, efficient and controlled activation and proliferation of T cells require new antibody-bearing materials, which, in particular, deliver mechanical and topographic cues sensed by T cells.

An Enhancer-Based Reporter Identifies Leukemia Cells with Elevated Leukemogenic Potential Driven by ERG-USP9X Feed-Forward Regulation.

Acute leukemia is a rapidly progressing blood cancer with low survival rates. Unfavorable prognosis is attributed to insufficiently characterized subpopulations of leukemia stem cells (LSC) that drive chemoresistance and leukemia relapse. Here we utilized a genetic reporter that assesses stemness to enrich and functionally characterize LSCs.

A novel method for detecting the cellular stemness state in normal and leukemic human hematopoietic cells can predict disease outcome and drug sensitivity.

Acute leukemia is an aggressive blood malignancy with low survival rates. A high expression of stem-like programs in leukemias predicts poor prognosis and is assumed to act in an aberrant fashion in the phenotypically heterogeneous leukemia stem cell (LSC) population. A lack of suitable genome engineering tools that can isolate LSCs based on their stemness precludes their comprehensive examination and full characterization.