Question

Leukemia is cancer of the body’s blood-forming tissues. A leukemia patient’s bone marrow produces an abnormally high number of white blood cells that do not function properly. A pharmacology company is trying to develop drugs to regulate the production of abnormal white blood cells.

Which of the following processes is most likely affected by this new drug?

A
Cellular respiration in blood cells
B
Transport of molecules into and out of cells
C
Differentiation of stem cells into specialized blood cells
D
Checkpoint during the cell cycle

Answer 1

C

Leukemia arises when hematopoietic (bone marrow) stem cells give rise to large numbers of immature or malfunctioning white blood cells — i.e., abnormal differentiation into specialized blood cells. A drug meant to regulate the production of those abnormal leukocytes would most directly affect the differentiation pathway of stem cells into mature blood cells.