Advances in the Research of Anti-CD44 Monoclonal Antibodies Mediated Therapy in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

CD44 is a widely distributed cell-surface glycoprotein involved in a variety of physiological and pathological processes. It plays a key role in the regulation of normal hematopoiesis, and especially it can induce terminal differentiation of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells. CD44-ligation with specific monoclonal antibodies (H90, A3D8 and HI44a) can reverse the differentiation blockage of leukemic blasts in some AML subtypes (from M1 to M5), and subsequently it can transform the cytologic and antigenic features of AML malignant cells to those of normal myeloid cells. This paper reviews the differentiative and apoptotic effects of anti-CD44 mAbs in AML cells and their possible mechanisms and the prospect of using CD44-targated therapy for AML.