Surprise! HSC Are Aberrant in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

In this issue of Cancer Cell, Kikushige et al. report the surprising finding that, in human chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) aberrantly generate clonal B cells with CLL-like phenotypes, which implicate HSC in the pathogenesis of this mature lymphoid malignancy and has major implications for CLL therapies.