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Malignant tumors have been known for many years to release proteins or polypeptides into the circulation (for review, see ref. 1). Some of these molecules have biological activity, resulting in endocrinologic manifestations of malignancy referred to as paraneoplastic syndromes. In c ...

Highly electrophilic functional groups of exogenous and endogenous chemicals represent a significant threat to the structural integrity of DNA because of their propensity to react with nucleophilic sites on DNA bases. The accumulation of electrophile-mediated DNA lesions in ce ...

Our laboratory has discovered that blood sera of healthy men and women contain low levels of anti-HMdU (Shydroxymethyl-2′-deoxyuridine, an oxidized thymidine) autoantibodies (aAbs) (1,2) However, patients with chronic inflammatory diseases exhibit elevated anti-HMdU aAb ti ...

Knowledge of the actual active substances that act to initiate or modulate carcinogenests in humans is limited. The past two decades have been dedicated to the discovery of environmental factors including constituents of our diet that may be carcinogenic or modulators of carcinogenic p ...

The 65-kDa oncofetal protein (p65), a novel tumor marker (1–7), is highly conserved m different species (2,4). We have identified the p65 gene as a novel member of the family of genes that encode receptors for steroid hormones, vitamin D, retmoic acid and thyroid hormone (7). The p65 protein is highly homol ...

d-Glucaric acid (GA) 1s a natural, apparently nontoxic compound produced in small amounts by mammals, including humans (1) and by some plants. Specifically, GA or Its derlvatlves have been found in the latex of a succulent plant (2); mung bean seedlmgs (3); seedlings and needles of gymnosperms (4), la ...

Nonrandom chromosome abnormalities frequently are seen in particular subtypes of human leukemia and lymphoma. These abnormalities are considered to be involved in the neoplastic transformation and in tumor progression. The translocation (8;21) (q22;q22) is consistently ass ...

The presence of a novel, minute chromosome m the cells of patients with chrome myeloid leukemia (CML) was first described m 1960 by Nowell and Hungerford (1). The Philadelphia (Ph) chromosome, as it became known, was shown subsequently by banding techniques to result from a recrprocal transloca ...

The study of submicroscopic or minimal residual disease (MRD) in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia may eventually lead to stratification of therapy on an individual patient basis (reviewed in ref. 1). PCR of immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) and T-cell receptor (TCR) gene rearrang ...

Apoptosis is a series of controlled sequential events resulting in cell death. This complements proliferation in the maintenance of tissue homeostasis. The process is regulated to give a “shrinking cell” with a charactertstic appearance. Apoptotic cells undergo compaction of nucl ...

In situ hybridization (ISH) has become a powerful and versatile method for the detection and localization of nucleic acid sequences within cells or tissue preparations. The technique provides a high degree of spatial information; specific DNA or RNA sequences can be located within a small s ...

Cytogenetic changes are important in understanding the pathogenesis of disease. Karyotypic analysis is particularly useful when investigatmg conditions such as human malignancies, where aneuploidy and structural chromosome rearrangements are commonly found, as in the h ...

Single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) is a rapid and convenient procedure by which differences in the base composition of short DNA strands may be detected (1, 2). A useful application of this is in the comparison of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) generated products from gene codi ...

Mutations of the Wilms’ tumor (WT1) gene have been shown to underlie a proportion of cases of Wilms’ tumor, an embryonal kidney cancer occurring mainly in childhood. The WTl gene comprtses ten exons spanning approx 50 kb of genomrc DNA. The messenger RNA is approx 3 kb in length and encodes a zinc finger prote ...

Mutations in the retinoblastoma gene (RBl) predispose to the formation of ocular tumors. Following the cloning of RBI in 1986 (1), polymorphic restriction enzyme sites within RBl were used to “track” the mutant gene within affected families using linkage analysis (2, 3). This approach, howev ...

It is important to be able to assess the contribution of donor cells to the graft followmg bone marrow transplantation (BMT), as complete engraftment of marrow progenitors that can give rise to long term donor derived hemopoiesis may be important in long-term disease-free survival. The contr ...

The 5q-chromosome is found in a spectrum of malignant myeloid disorders (1). The 5q deletion is the most commonly reported deletion in the myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and is found in 10–l5% of patients (1). The 5q-chromosome occurs as a sole karyotypic abnormality in the distinct myelodysp ...

The diagnosis and classification of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) has traditionally been made based on morphologic and mununophenotypic criteria. Unfortunately, because of the diverse nature of this group of diseases, rehante solely on these criteria has frequently resulted in mi ...

The t(14;18) (q21;q32) translocation was originally identified as occurring in follicular low-grade non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas of B-cell origin in 1978 (1), and has been found in up to 85% of cases subsequently (2–4). The translocation appears to arise at the pre-B-cell stage in the bone marrow when VDJ ...

Chromosome rearrangements of chromosome 11 at band 1 1q23 are detected in a high proportion of infant leukemias (