Acute Myeloid Leukemia is a cancer of the myeloid cell line of blood cells of the bone marrow. Rapid growth of cancer cells leads to the accumulation of neoplastic blasts in the node marrow, and interferes with the production of normal blood cells.
AML develops as the consequence of a series of genetic changes. Two major types of changes have been described as crucial for leukemic transformation:
1. Disordered cell growth and up-regulation of cell survival genes. The most common of these activating events are in the RTK Flt3, in N-Ras and K-Ras, in Kit, and sometimes in other RTKs.
2. Alterations in transcription factors regulating hematopoietic differentiation. Transcription factor fusion proteins such as AML-ETO, PML-RARalpha or PLZF-RARalpha block myeloid cell differentiation by repressing target genes. Sometimes the transcription factors themselves are mutated.
This description was adapted from KEGG (https://www.kegg.jp/pathway/map=map05221), Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_myeloid_leukemia) and Wolters Kluwer Up to Date (https://www.uptodate.com/contents/acute-myeloid-leukemia-molecular-genetics).