Children affected by trisomy 21 (or Down syndrome) are 50 to 500 timesmore likely to develop leukemia than other children. A group ofgeneticists working in the Faculty of Medicine at the University ofGeneva (UNIGE) focused for many years on the genetic characteristics ofDown syndrome. They have sequenced the exome, a specific part of ourgenome, in a cohort of patients affected both by Down Syndrome andAcute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (DS-ALL), a type of cancer relative tothe cells of the immune system in the bone marrow. They were able tosketch an outline of the "genetic identity card" of this disease. Theyfound that RAS, an important oncogene in many cancers, is involved inthe tumorigenesis of one third of DS-ALL cases. This work is beingpublished in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications.
Source: Université de Genève