白血病干细胞是白血病克隆中具有自我更新和启动白血病发生的细胞，白血病干细胞的持续存在是白血病复发、转移和耐药的根本原因。因此，研究白血病干细胞的自我更新和分化的机制，对白血病的发病机制及治疗策略的研究具有重要价值。本项目组近期报道，一种从腺花香茶菜植物中提取的对映-贝壳杉烷二萜类化合物腺花素，通过特异性靶向过氧化还原酶I/II（Prx I/II）诱导白血病细胞分化，显著减少白血病小鼠体内白血病干细胞的数量，并且延长白血病小鼠的生存时间。同时，预实验结果还提示，在白血病干细胞中敲除Prx I/II能显著抑制其克隆形成并相应延长白血病小鼠的生存期。本项目组将以这些重要的发现为基础，深入研究腺花素靶向Prx I/II清除白血病干细胞而发挥抗白血病效应的机制，尤其是Prx I/II在白血病干细胞的自我更新及分化中的调节作用。研究结果这对推动白血病发病学和治疗学基础研究具有重要意义。

Leukemia stem cells, which initiate the development of leukemia, have ability to self-renew and differentiate into all the leukemia cells. Some of these cells persist after treatment play the key role in leukemia relapse, metastasis and drug resistance. Therefore, it is of great value to investigate the mechanisms of LSC self-renewal and differentiation for the pathogenesis and therapeutic options of leukemia. Recently, we have reported that adenanthin, a diterpenoid isolated from the leaves of Rabdosia adenantha in Yunnan province, specifically targeted peroxiredoxin I and II to induce differentiation of leukemic cells. Adenanthin also significantly eliminated LSCs and prolonged the survival of leukemic mice. Moreover, our preliminary results also indicated that knockdown of Prx I/II in LSCs significantly inhibited the colony formation and prolonged the survival of leukemic mice correspondingly. Based on these important findings, we want to study the mechanism of the anti-leukemia effect of adenanthin, which targets of Prx I/II to eliminate leukemia stem cells, especially the key role of Prx I/II in leukemia stem cell self-renewal and differentiation. These studies will pave the way for the further investigation on basic research of leukemic pathogenesis and therapeutic study.