Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, in collaboration with a number of other prestigious insitutions have uncovered the link between the gene DICER1 - a master controller gene that is involved in the regulation of the expression of other genes - and cancer development.
The study started with research into the cause of an inherited form a rare aggressive childhood lung cancer – pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB). Current studies show that approximately 40 percent of PPB cases occur amongst families holding a history of the disease and/or childhood cancers, leading scientists to suspect that PPB was the result of an inherited genetic abnormality. The research team studied the genetic makeup of 11 extended families with 2 or more members havinng PPB or related disorders.
The study showed that all the children studied with the rare cancer were carrying damaging mutations in one of their DICER1 genes, giving them one functional and one nonfunctional copy of that gene in their cells. The researchers postulated that the PPB lung would orginate when one or more cells in the lung aquire a harmful mutation in their functional copy of the DICER1 gene.
Further research then found that reduced DICER1 gene expression in tumor cells is associated with worse outcomes in patients with ovarian, lung, breast and prostate cancers. The findings from an investigation have the potential to provide information on the development of many other cancers.
The findings were presented at the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Associated of Cancer Research in Denver.
Medical News Today – Genetics – Lung Cancer
Article Dated 21st April 2009
(To view original article): http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/146777.php
(For more info): http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/unusual-childhood-cancers
