Genome-Wide Expression Analysis Helps Understand Leukemia Development

A genome-wide expression analysis compared highly enriched normal blood stem cells and leukemic stem cells, and identified several new pathways that have a key role in cancer development.

Using modern microarray technology, scientists revealed a string of stem-cell pathways; some were already well known and others not previously implicated in leukemia and other cancers. The scientists identified Three thousand and five differentially expressed genes. Among them, a ribosome and T-cell receptor signaling pathway emerged as having a role in regulation of the cancer stem cells.

The direct comparison of leukemic stems cells (obtained by consent from patients) to normal blood stem cells, provided critical insight into the differences found in malignancy that could be used to develop targeted therapy, said Michael W. Becker, M.D., an assistant professor at the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC; Rochester, NY, USA). Professor Becker led the genome-wide expression study, which was described in the February 9, 2009 issue of the Proceedings of the [U.S.] National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Scientists believe the best way to eradicate cancer could be to find therapies that target cancer's stem cells--the cells thought to be responsible for maintaining the disease. Most cancer treatments today fail to attack cancer at its root, which is why the disease can recur despite aggressive therapy.

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