CML, chronic myelogenous leukemia, is a blood cancer that develops when the causative protein BCR-ABL appears in cells. TKIs, molecular targeted drugs that suppress the tyrosine kinase activity of BCR-ABL, have been used for treatment of CML. However, the problem is that a successful drug response is not known until treatment is actually started and follow-up is conducted. We have developed "opto-diagnostics" to detect the activity of BCR-ABL, utilizing the principle of Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), with the substrate CrkL of BCR-ABL. This makes it possible to analyze the drug sensitivity of CML cells collected from patients at the single-cell level, prior to the start of treatment.
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Fluorescence bioimaging technology enables highly sensitive and
quantitative measurement of protein movement and
function in living cells.
Our goal is to apply this technology to clinical testing.