Acute myeloid leukemia and novel biological treatments: Monoclonal antibodies and cell-based gene-modified immune effectors

• High rates of relapse in AML is a well-known drawback of standard therapies.
• Need of alternative and more specific therapeutic strategies.
• We review the passive immunotherapy approaches with mAbs or CAR-engineered cells.
• The target antigen choice is critical for developing advanced therapies.
• Safety issues are crucial to improve the benefit/risk ratio of AML immunotherapy.

In the context of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treatment, the interface between chemotherapy and immunotherapy is at present getting closer as never before. Scientific research is oriented in overcoming the main limits of actual chemotherapeutic regimens against AML, which still accounts for a considerable number of relapsed or resistant forms.A lot of investments have been done in the use of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and recently gene-modified immune cells have been considered as an alternative approach whenever chemotherapy fails to eradicate the disease. In this sense, AML is a potential suitable target for immunotherapeutic approaches, due to overexpression of several tumor antigens.Here we describe the state of the art of mAbs and cellular therapies employing engineered immune effectors, developed against specific AML antigens, in a window embracing preclinical research and translational studies to the clinical setting.