Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have discovered a biomarker in the DNA of five different types of cancerous tumors, as well as evidence that the genetic signature may be present in other types of cancer.
The NIH team sequenced tumor DNA that had been collected and used a technique called polymerase chain reaction to amplify the DNA. Computational biologist Laura Elnitski, PhD, and her group analyzed the results and found elevated levels of methylation around the gene known as ZNF154 that is unique to tumors. Methylation is a chemical modification of DNA.
They identified signature methylation marks in colon, lung, breast, stomach and endometrial cancer tumor DNA.
"Finding the methylation signature was an incredibly arduous and valuable process," said Dan Kastner, MD, PhD, scientific director of the NIH National Human Genome Research Institute. "These findings could be an important step in developing a test to identify early cancers through a blood test."
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