Led by scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Health Research Institute of Asturias in Spain, and AstraZeneca, the study reveals that specific inherited genetic changes affect the likelihood of developing ‘clonal haematopoiesis’, a common condition characterized by the development of expanding clones of multiplying blood cells in the body, driven by mutations in their DNA.
Although symptomless, the disorder becomes ubiquitous with age and is a risk factor for developing blood cancer and other age-related diseases. Its onset is a result of genetic changes in our blood-making cells.
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All human cells acquire genetic changes in their DNA throughout life, known as somatic mutations, with a specific subset of somatic mutations driving cells to multiply. This is particularly common in professional blood-making cells, known as blood stem cells, and results in the growth of populations of cells with identical mutations known as ‘clones’.
Using data from the UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database and research resource containing genetic and health information from half a million UK participants, the team were able to show how these genetic changes relate not only to blood cancers but also to tumours that develop elsewhere in the body such as lung, prostate and ovarian cancer.
The findings also clearly established that smoking is one of the strongest modifiable risk factors for developing the disorder, emphasizing the importance of reducing tobacco use to prevent the condition’s onset and its harmful consequences.
Leukemia Genetics
Dr Siddhartha Kar, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Bristol and one of the study’s lead authors from Bristol’s MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU), said: “Our findings implicate genes and the mechanisms involved in the expansion of aberrant blood cell clones and can help guide treatment advances to avert or delay the health consequences of clonal hematopoiesis such as progression to cancer and the development of other diseases of ageing.”
Professor George Vassiliou, Professor of Haematological Medicine at the University of Cambridge and one of the study’s lead authors, added: “Our study reveals that the cellular mechanisms driving clonal haematopoiesis can differ depending on the mutated gene responsible. This is a challenge as we have many leads to follow, but also an opportunity as we may be able to develop treatments specific to each of the main subtypes of this common phenomenon.”
Source: Newswise
