Gene-Chip Method Detects Neuroblastoma

Researchers have developed a gene-chip based method for detecting neuroblastoma, a common form of children's cancer.

Neuroblastoma is predominantly a tumor of early childhood; two thirds of children with neuroblastoma are diagnosed when they are younger than five years of age. It is often present at birth but usually is not detected until later; in rare cases, neuroblastoma can be detected before birth by fetal ultrasound. Neuroblastomas are characterized by somatically acquired genetic abnormalities, including loss of heterozygosity (LOH) at multiple chromosomal loci, and these irregularities are strongly associated with clinical phenotype including patient outcome.

Investigators at Thomas Jefferson University (Philadelphia, PA, USA) designed a screening method for neuroblastoma LOH based on DNA microarrays. Their approach allowed them to assess region-specific LOH by genotyping multiple SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) simultaneously in DNA from tumor tissues.

Their paper published in the August 2005 issue of Genome Research described the simultaneous detection of multiple regions of LOH in six human neuroblastoma-derived cell lines and 14 human neuroblastoma primary tumors. "We have customized this tool for neuroblastoma, but the approach might also be adapted to other types of cancer in which DNA changes are important,” said senior author Dr. Paolo Fortina, professor of medicine at Thomas Jefferson University. "We can test DNA from peripheral blood and from the tumor, and we should see a loss of signal in the cancer.”



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