With space transcriptomics, Swedish and British researchers have created a genetic map that reveals how healthy cells evolve. An algorithm tracks genetic changes
British researchers from the University of Oxford and Swedish researchers from the Kth Royal Institute in Stockholm have discovered that several genetic mutations typical of cancer may already be present in cells that are still believed to be healthy. Research it, published in the magazine Nature it opens up new perspectives in the field of early diagnosis and precision medicine, but it also gives hope, more generally, that it will become possible to better understand the mechanisms that lead a healthy cell to become sick, cancer in particular.
The new technique
Current techniques for studying the genetics of cells within tumors involve taking a sample from the cancerous area and analyzing the DNA. The problem that many cancers, such as the prostate cancer, are three-dimensional and this means that any sample would provide only a small snapshot of the tumor. For this the researchers used a specific technique, the so-called space transcriptomics. The transcriptomics the discipline that studies the whole of the messenger RNA of a cell also called transcriptome. From the messenger RNAs, through the translation process, the proteins of which living organisms are made are derived. Space Transcriptomics, in particular, aims to identify hundreds or thousands of transcripts on a single tissue, locating them in its biological context.
Healthy cells with tumor characteristics
Joakim Lundeberg of Kth explained how, in this way, it was possible to discover in tissue sections of organs such as the prostate the presence of genetic alterations similar to those of cancer cells in apparently healthy cells. By grouping the cells according to a similar genetic identity, the researchers explained that they were surprised to see areas of presumably healthy tissue that already had many of the genetic characteristics of cancer.
Future prospects
This result, if confirmed, would open in the future to the possibility of identifying the first events of the cancer progression, and patients in whom the tumor is destined to develop. We never had a level of information comparable to what we have now said Alastair Lamb, a urologist at the University of Oxford. For example, we have discovered many of the events at the gene level that we previously thought were specifically linked to cancer are actually already present in healthy tissue, and carries with it significant diagnostic implications.
The algorithm
By analyzing over 150,000 regions from cancers of the prostate, breast, skin and even lymph nodes and brain, the study authors developed a algorithm that able to trace groups of cells with similar genetic changes and also pinpoint their exact location, obtaining a real genetic map of tumors. The mapping of thousands of tissue regions in a single experiment – concludes Joakim Lundeberg – is an unprecedented approach, the aim of which is to try to unravel the complexity of tumors.
August 10, 2022 (change August 10, 2022 | 19:24)
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