前沿科技及其它

Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a clonal myeloproliferative disorder in adults, and some pediatric and adult acute lymphoblastic eukemias (ALLs) are characterized by the presence of a Philadelphia chromosome, t(9;22)(q34;q11) (1). In this chromosomal translocation, exons f ...

The goal of early detection and screening is the diagnosis and treatment of cancer before it spreads beyond the organ of origin, perhaps even in its preinvasive state. Unfortunately, available early detection and screening techniques pick up many tumors at a relatively late stage in their nat ...

The TP53 tumor suppressor gene on chromosome 17p13.1 contains 11 exons and encodes a nuclear phosphoprotein of 53 kDa, a transcription factor involved in the regulation of the cell cycle (1). Normal p53 protein functions as a cell cycle checkpoint and is involved in DNA repair and/or apoptosis (2). T ...

Management of T-cell lymphoma patients requires bone marrow examination for the assessment of stage and prognosis (1,2). Bone marrow biopsy (BMB) is mandatory when bone marrow aspirate is not successful (e.g., in cases of patchy lymphomatous infiltration or induction of fibrosis ) (3). More ...

Preferentially expressed antigen of melanoma (PRAME) was first isolated using cDNA expression cloning techniques as a gene encoding a human melanoma antigen recognized by melanoma reactive cytotoxic T-cells (CTL) (1). This gene codes for a 509-amino-acid protein whose function has n ...

Methylation of DNA plays a major role in many biological processes throughout phylogeny. Generally, methylated DNA is associated with inactive gene transcription and compact chromatin structure. In mammalian DNA, typically cytosine residues within the 5′-CpG-3′ dinucleotide h ...

Disorders of the cell cycle regulatory machinery play a key role in the pathogenesis of cancer. The gene encoding the cyclin D1 protein, a regulator of the progression from the G1- to S-phase, is often found disrupted in the cancer cell genome by the processes of chromosome translocation or gene ampli ...

Despite manifold advances in cancer care during recent times, the outlook for many patients with epithelial and mesenchymal malignancies remains poor. Hence, as cancer diagnosis and management moves into the 21st century, cancer has become the paradigm disease of the molecular era, with a ...

The finite growth potential of normal cells is termed “cellular senescence” and its regulation appears to involve specialized DNA structures known as telomeres that exist at the ends of all eukaryotic chromosomes (1). Human telomeres consist of tandem nucleotide repeats of 6 bp, TTAGGG. Th ...

TP53 mutations are the most common genetic alterations in human malignancies. Since it was first discovered in 1989, more than 1700 different TP53 mutations have been described at more than 310 distinct resides. According to the most recent updated (September 2002) TP53 mutation database ( ...

The telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) assay, first published by Kim et al. in 1994 (1), is used to detect telomerase activity. The scope of the technique is far reaching and has implications for telomere, telomerase, aging, and cancer research (2,3). In particular, it has revolution ...

The increased knowledge of the human genome, thanks to its sequencing and to the accumulation of data that ensue from it, prompts the characterization of disease-causing genes. Especially because of the continuing expansion of cancer-related gene discovery, oncobiology is a discipli ...

The detection of chromosome imbalances in malignancies has been a popular and useful approach in understanding key genetic loci and the molecular pathways of carcinogenesis. Alterations in gene dosage constitutes a major mechanism that leads to an imbalance in the gene products of onco ...

The rate of discovery of new genes involved in cancer and other diseases has increased heavily. The demand for analyses of these new genes in diseased tissues, especially human tumors, has grown at the same pace. To identify the most significant ones among all the emerging candidate cancer genes, it is ...

Reviewing the literature, it would appear that tumor markers have often flattered to deceive. Early promise does not often seem to be borne out in extended trials. Despite apparently high specificity, very few markers are capable of assisting in a screening process.

The following series of short technical descriptions covers the extraction of DNA and RNA from various starting materials. We have gathered these together to provide an easy reference. The techniques described in the rest of this volume are, in the main, worked laboratory methods giving deta ...

It has been estimated that in 2002, 555,500 Americans will have died of cancer, approximating to 1500 people per day (1). In Britain, the figures are similarly high, with 150,200 reported deaths from cancer in the year 2000 (2). Although a considerable proportion of these deaths are linked to environme ...

Microdissection of cells with distinct histological features from tissue sections has become important because of the development of sensitive genetic techniques. This is of particular importance when analyzing genetic differences in tumor tissue compared to normal tissue. F ...

The BCR-ABL fusion gene arises as a result of a reciprocal translocation between chromosomes 9 and 22, resulting in the so-called Philadelphia (Ph) chromosome (a minute chromosome 22), which is found in 95% of cases of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) (1). A variable sequence length of the BCR gene at 22q11 ...

The assessment of HER2/c-erbB-2/neu (hereafter HER2) gene amplification and protein expression has become one of the central debating points in current breast cancer diagnosis and biology. The debate around whom to test, when testing should be offered, and, most importantly, which method ...