Paired single-cell RNA-seq pre- and post-venetoclax therapy of 8 AML patients

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) remains a cancer with dismal prognosis, particularly in high-risk disease patients and those ineligible for allogeneic stem cell transplantation. BCL-2 inhibitor venetoclax, in combination with hypomethylating agents, has emerged as an effective therapy and forms the backbone of multiple combination therapies in clinical trials. However, venetoclax-based therapy is rarely curative. While multiple venetoclax resistance mechanisms have been discovered, most of these have been identified using cell line models that only partially reflect the heterogeneous composition of human AML. Using paired single-cell data from 8 AML patients with pre- and post-venetoclax therapy samples, we aimed to characterize mechanisms driving venetoclax resistance in a clinically relevant setting.