Researchers at the Jackson Institute (JAX) in the United States have developed a new method that can determine the cell types that cause specific types of leukemia by analyzing the whole genome of open chromatin. This method plays an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of leukemia. The role of.
All cancers begin with a single cell mutation. Understanding the primordial cells of cancer cells allows researchers to analyze cancer subtypes and develop new diagnostic and treatment methods, but existing methods can identify primordial cells from a large number of tumor cell samples. This is difficult to do. Chromatin is an important part of the cell nucleus. It is composed of DNA, histones, and RNA. They condense and contract into chromosomes during specific stages of cell division. Each cell type has its own chromatin structure. The enclosed chromatin is tightly packed around the nucleosomes and is relatively inactive. The open chromatin and nucleosomes are relatively loosely connected and become more active. Dr. Jennifer Trowbridge, assistant professor at the Jackson Institute, improved the current method of identifying the origin of tumor cells by analyzing the open chromatin of tumor cells.
Tokutan BRICH led his colleagues to establish a mouse model of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in his laboratory. They identified five types of cells from human and mouse bone marrow: long-term hematopoietic stem cells, short-term hematopoietic stem cells, pluripotent precursor cells, common myeloid precursor cells, and granulocyte macrophage precursor cells. AML caused by these cells from different sources shows different aggressiveness to mice. Damage caused by stem cells is more invasive, while damage caused by precursor cells is much less invasive. The frequency of leukemia cells induced by different invasiveness is also different: stem cells are high and progenitor cells are low. The researchers analyzed the open chromatin in various AML cell samples and compared them with the open chromatin patterns in normal cells to determine the open chromatin characteristics and gene expression patterns in the AML cell samples. Distinguish between AML caused by stem cells and AML caused by progenitor cells. The researchers say that further studies of the open chromatin of stem and progenitor cells in healthy individuals and AML patient populations can identify more accurate cancer biomarkers based on the source of the cells. This is useful for diagnosing and treating cancer.