The research, from Stanford University, is published in Cell Stem Cell.
The study found that leukaemia "stem cells", which drive the spread of the cancer, work differently to healthy blood stem cells. This might mean they can be targeted and destroyed more easily.
Recently researchers have been focusing on cancer stem cells, a departure from earlier years when all cancer cells were regarded as being the same. These cancer stem cells, like healthy stem cells, provide a source for new cells. Research is focused on preventing these cells from continuing to provide a source of new cancer cells.
This is a particular problem in leukaemia, where relapse after chemotherapy is relatively common.
Conventional treatment for some forms of leukaemia destroys both leukaemia cells and healthy blood cells, but the latest research may point to ways in which therapies can be fine tuned to pick off the leukaemia stem cells more efficiently. The researchers found difference between two types of stem cells.
Leukaemia stem cells, they found, tap into a genetic mechanism normally harnessed by stem cells in the embryo to allow their division into fresh cells.
Normal blood stem cells use a difference mechanism to prompt their growth.
This means that, in theory at least, drugs which targeted this process would stop leukaemia stem cells dividing, while leaving healthy blood stem cells unharmed.
