One of the causes of blood cancer is non-inherited mutations in blood stem cells that can lead to the cancerous growth of abnormal cells. Reporting in Nature, scientists now suggest that targeting a gene called TCL1A may be able to suppress such growth and decrease the risk of blood cancer....
“Some people have a mutation that prevents TCL1A from being turned on, which protects them from both faster clone growth and from blood cancer,” Bick said. That’s what makes the gene so interesting as a potential drug target.”
The researchers continue to investigate the role of the gene in blood cancer with the hope of discovering additional important pathways in order to possibly prevent the onset of disease in future studies.
That earlier study introduced a novel technique called PACER (passenger-approximated clonal expansion rate), which infers the clonal expansion rate from single timepoint data, obviating the need for blood sampling of many subjects over many years.
With age, dividing cells in the body acquire mutations. Most of these mutations are innocuous "passenger" mutations. But sometimes, a mutation occurs that drives the development of a clone and ultimately causes cancer.
Prior to this study, scientists would measure clonal growth rate by comparing blood samples taken decades apart. Bick and his colleagues figured out a way to determine the growth rate from a single timepoint, by counting the number of passenger mutations.
"You can think of passenger mutations like rings on a tree," Bick said. "The more rings a tree has, the older it is. If we know how old the clone is (how long ago it was born) and how big it is (what percentage of blood it takes up), we can estimate the growth rate."
The PACER technique for determining the "passenger-approximated clonal expansion rate" was applied to more than 5,000 individuals who had acquired specific, cancer-associated driver mutations in their blood stem cells, called "clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential" or CHIP, but who did not have blood cancer.
But what is CHIP?
CHIP stands for Clonal Hematopoiesis of Indeterminate Potential.
CHIP is a non-malignant condition characterised by mutation and clonal expansion of blood cells, beginning at middle age, affecting around 20 % of the population. CHIP is associated with a higher risk of developing hematological malignancies and cardiovascular disease.
CHIP is usually associated with myeloid blood cancers. What about CLL?
ashpublications.org/blood/a...supports the association between mutations in CHIP related genes and risk of hematologic malignancies, in particular CLL. This is the first report of the prevalence of CHIP in MBLs. Although MBL and CHIP represent clonal population of blood cells, our data suggest the clones are different. Mutations in CLL driver genes are also associated with CLL risk but show little to no evidence with increased MBL risk.
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