A novel type of monocytic leukemia stem cell revealed by the clinical use of venetoclax-based therapy

Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease on both inter- and intra-patient levels. In many patients, relapse is driven by a relatively small pool of Leukemia Stem Cells (LSCs) that are able to resist therapeutic perturbation and drive proliferation of the malignant AML blast pool. Due to the low frequency of LSCs and high degree of heterogeneity between and within patients, inspecting these specimens at the single cell level is critical to identifying the true relapse driving cells and tailoring therapies towards these cells. Overall design: We performed CITE-seq on primary AML patient specimens derived from either peripheral blood or bone marrow to capture single cell transcriptomics and surface protein expression.