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Healthy bone marrow stromal
cells were made to transfer their power-generating mitochondria to other cancer cells, effectively feeding the acute myeloid leukaemia AML and supporting the leukaemia to grow.
AML act in a parasitic way by generating oxygen-deprived conditions in the bone marrow which stimulates the transfer of healthy mitochondria from the non-cancerous cells to the leukaemia cells.
An enzyme found in the AML cell membrane was shown to be responsible for creating the conditions necessary for mitochondrial transfer to occur. Researchers established that the enzyme called NOX-2 generated superoxide which drives this transfer.
The transfer takes place through AML-derived tunnelling nanotubes TNTs which link the cancer cells directly to the surrounding healthy cells.
Furthermore by inhibiting NOX-2, researchers showed a reduction in mitochondrial transfer took place which limited how much energy the AML cells could generate and resulted in slower cancer growth.
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