Grant: Operating Grant

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are a group of diseases in which the bone marrow produces too few blood cells, and which may progress to acute leukemia. Within this group of disorders is a specific subset of disease in which the malignant cells are missing part of chromosome 5. The bone marrow of patients with this type of MDS, which is called del(5q) MDS or 5q- syndrome, is more likely to fail to produce adequate numbers of blood cells with time. Previously, we were the first group to identify that three factors that belong to a new type of RNA called microRNAs are lost in del(5q) MDS and account for some of the findings in the disorder. We found that these microRNAs regulate signals for inflammation in blood stem cells. Stem cells are the cells that produce all the other types of blood cells. We believe that the abnormal inflammation signals in blood stem cells causes the stem cells to age more quickly and explains in part how del(5q) MDS becomes a malignant disease. This grant is designed to understand the function of these three microRNAs within the blood stem cell compartment, and to determine how their loss might contribute to stem cells that fail to produce sufficient blood.