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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 People inherit half their DNA from their mothers and half from fathers, but errors occur along the way. Human's genetic replication machinery functions, in a sense, like a malfunctioning copy machine that occasionally spits out too many -- or two few -- copies of a page while duplicating a stack of documents.
When DNA is copied incorrectly, the result is known as a copy number variation.
Maris acknowledged that the value of the research is limited. "We hope that some day it may give us information that will lead to new therapy," he said, but the findings won't lead to a genetic test for the illness.
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After all, the cancer strikes just one in 7,000 new births, and a doubling of that risk isn't hugely significant, he said.
In the future, however, researchers might better understand how genetic variations work together to cause the cancer. "Once we have that," he said, "we'll have a more precise estimate of the likelihood of developing the disease."
Dr. John S. Yu, director of surgical neuro-oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, agreed that the findings hold promise.
"This is a small step of many steps, and potentially a very important step, in determining the cause of a pretty lethal cancer," Yu said.
In another study in the same issue of Nature, researchers from the New York University School of Medicine reported they had discovered a protein receptor on the outer surface of cells that's involved in the spread of leukemia.
Specifically, they looked at T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which strikes mostly children. Though treatable, the relapse rate for this cancer is high and, once it recurs, it is seldom treatable, experts say, because it invades the brain and spinal cord.
In a study on mice, the researchers found that "if you knock out this receptor, these cells will not go to the brain under any circumstances," study senior author Ioannis Aifantis, co-director of the Cancer Stem Cell Program at the NYU Cancer Institute, said in a statement.
The finding could lead to the development of new drugs that would block the receptor and prevent relapse, the researchers added.
More information
The American Cancer Society has more on neuroblastoma.
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