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Acute myeloid leukaemias harbouring a rearrangement of the mixed lineage leukaemia gene (MLL) are aggressive haematopoietic malignancies that relapse early and have a poor prognosis (event-free survival less than 50%). Menin is a tumour suppressor, however, in MLL-rearranged leukaemias it functions as a co-factor which is mandatory for the leukaemic transformation by interaction with the N-terminal part of MLL, which is maintained in all MLL-fusion proteins. Inhibition of menin blocks leukaemogenesis and leads to differentiation and, in turn, to apoptosis of leukaemic blasts. Furthermore, nucleophosmin 1 (NPM1) binds to specific chromatin targets, which are co-occupied by MLL, and menin inhibition has been shown to trigger degradation of mNPM1 resulting in a rapid decrease in gene expression and activating histone modifications. Therefore, disruption of the menin-MLL axis blocks leukaemias driven by NPM1 mutations for which the expression of menin-MLL target genes (e.g., MEIS1, HOX etc.) is essential. To date at least six different menin-MLL inhibitors are undergoing clinical evaluation as first- and second-line monotherapy in acute leukaemias: DS-1594, BMF-219, JNJ-75276617, DSP-5336, revumenib, and ziftomenib, however, only for revumenib and ziftomenib early clinical data have been reported. In the revumenib phase I/II AUGMENT-101 trial (N = 68) with very heavily pretreated AML patients the ORR was 53% with a CR rate of 20%. The ORR in patients harbouring MLL rearrangement of mNPM1 was 59%. Patients who achieved a response had a mOS of 7 months. Similar results have been reported for ziftomenib in the phase I/II COMET-001 trial. ORR was 40% and CRc was 35% in AML patients with mNPM1. However, outcome was worse in AML patients with a MLL rearrangement (ORR 16.7%, CRc 11%). Differentiation syndrome was a notable adverse event. The clinical development of novel menin-MLL inhibitors is well in line with the currently ongoing paradigm shift towards targeted therapies seen in the AML treatment landscape. Moreover, the clinical assessment of combinations of these inhibitors with established therapy options in AML could be the fuel for an improved outcome of MLL/NPM1 patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although advanced age is linked with an increased incidence of lung carcinomas, elderly patients develop fewer metastatic tumors than their younger counterparts. Since extracellular matrix controls carcinogenesis, we studied the effect of aged fibrillar collagen (rat tail) on the invasiveness of lung carcinoma cells (H322, H358). Two- and three-dimensional invasion assays revealed a reduced migration a lung cancer cells through a matrix of collagen from old (24 mo) compared with young (2 mo) or adult (12 mo) rats. This was most strongly observed for H322 cells, which had a better migration behavior than H358 cells, collagen was increasingly modified by advanced glycation end products (AGEs; fluorescing AGEs, nonfluorescing carboxymethyllysine), we generated different AGE-collagens by treating collagen with ribose or α-dicarbonyls. Similarly to old collagen, AGE-collagen reduced the invasive migration of H322 cells. Subsequent analyses demonstrated that old and AGE-collagens impair distinct mechanisms contributing to cell migration, i.e., efficient cell adhesion and proteolytic degradation of collagen by membrane-type matrix metalloproteinase (MT-MMP; MT-MMP3 in H322 cells). Our data indicate that age-related alterations of the extracellular matrix contribute to a less invasive behavior of lung carcinoma cells, in which AGE modifications of aged collagen seem to play an important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]