Tim-3 as a signalling receptor expressed by leukaemia cells and potential target for highly specific drug delivery

Leukaemia is a blood/bone marrow cancer caused by malignant immature hematopoietic

that has the highest number of lethal outcomes is Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) where

We discovered a fundamental biochemical mechanism in AML cells, which includes ligand

other G-protein coupled receptors, leading to upregulated translation and secretion of the

the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR). Tim-3 was observed to participate in galectin-9

activities of cytotoxic lymphoid cells including natural killer (NK) cells and soluble Tim-3

cytotoxic lymphoid cells.

This fundamental pathway provides reliable targets for both highly specific diagnosis and

Furthermore, we demonstrated that the Tim-3/galectin-9 autocrine loop has intracellular

pathway controlled by mTOR.