Zeitschrift für molekulare Biomarker und Diagnose

IL-3 Receptor Alpha Chain is a Biomarker and a Therapeutic Target of Myeloid Neoplasms

Abstract

Ugo Testa, Germana Castelli and Elvira Pelosi

The alpha-chain of the interleukin-3 receptor (IL-3RA or CD123) is frequently deregulated in myeloid neoplasias and its deregulation contributes to survival and proliferation of malignant cells. This review is focused to the analysis of the diseases in which CD123 is markedly overexpressed, such as blastic plasmocytoid dendritic neoplasms (BPDCN), systemic mastocytosis (SM), chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The highly overexpressed IL-3R represents also a molecular target suitable for the development of specific targeted therapies using either the IL-3 ligand fused with cytotoxic drugs, or mono-, bi- or tri-specific anti-CD123 monoclonal antibodies or CD123-specific chimeric antigen receptor T cells.