Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Research Makes Breakthrough!

Chromosome reshuffle affecting blood stem cells leads to years-later cancer development
A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)-based research team has identified how a chromosomal abnormality known to be associated with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) – the most common cancer in children – initiates the disease process. In the July issue of Cell Stem Cell, they describe how expression of this mutation in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), which usually occurs before birth, leads to the development of leukemia many years later.

"Based on their longevity, it had been assumed but never shown that HSCs were the cells in which the first steps of leukemia occur. We now unequivocally demonstrate that HSCs can be involved in the early evolution of leukemia and that cells expressing an oncogene can continue contributing to blood formation while serving as a hard-to-detect reservoir of malignancy-prone cells," says Hanno Hock, MD, PhD, of the MGH Cancer Center and Center for Regenerative Medicine, corresponding author of the Cell Stem Cell article. "We hope that better understanding the latency period of childhood leukemia will help us interfere with the disease earlier and in a more targeted, less toxic manner."

To read more...
MGH study identifies first molecular steps to childhood leukemia

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