NIH旗下癌症研究所的研究人员称，根据肿瘤细胞中某些基因的位置，或可以开发出一种诊断癌症的新方法。这项由Meaburn等人完成的研究发表在12月7日的Journal of Cell Biology的杂志上。
在细胞核内，每个基因通常都有一个特定的存在位点，但当细胞分化时，基因所处的位置会发生变化，因此，Meaburn等人想知道当细胞发生癌变，核酸的形态发生较大改变时，是否会导致基因的位置发生重排。
课题组对20个基因进行分析，发现在健康的乳腺组织中，大多数的基因呈均匀分布。而在侵润性乳腺癌细胞的细胞核中，上述20个基因中有8个基因，在细胞核中的位置发生了改变。因此，研究人员能够根据这些基因在细胞核中的定位来判定该组织属于正常组织还是病变组织，而且这种方法的正确率与当前的临床诊断方法相差无几。
Meaburn称，下一步实验将会在更大样本中重复该研究。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
The Journal of Cell Biology December 7, 2009 doi:10.1083/jcb.200909127
Disease-specific gene repositioning in breast cancer
Karen J. Meaburn1, Prabhakar R. Gudla2, Sameena Khan1, Stephen J. Lockett2, and Tom Misteli1
1 National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892
2 Optical Microscopy and Analysis Laboratory, Advanced Technology Program, Science Applications International Corporation-Frederick, Inc., and National Cancer Institute at Frederick, Frederick, MD 21702
Genomes are nonrandomly organized within the three-dimensional space of the cell nucleus. Here, we have identified several genes whose nuclear positions are altered in human invasive breast cancer compared with normal breast tissue. The changes in positioning are gene specific and are not a reflection of genomic instability within the cancer tissue. Repositioning events are specific to cancer and do not generally occur in noncancerous breast disease. Moreover, we show that the spatial positions of genes are highly consistent between individuals. Our data indicate that cancer cells have disease-specific gene distributions. These interphase gene positioning patterns may be used to identify cancer tissues.
