Published in Nature Genetics

Researcher from Cancer Biology Unit of IMM, lead by João T. Barata, have found a group of mutations involved in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), and showed that certain drugs, already in clinical use to treat other diseases, can eliminate the cells carrying these mutations. Results were published in Nature Genetics and may promote the development of novel therapeutic approaches against leukemia.
The study was led by researcher João T. Barata at Instituto de Medicina Molecular jointly with J. Andres Yunes at Centro Infantil Boldrini in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, in collaboration with researchers from the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland, USA, the Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; and other laboratories in Europe and the US. This is a basic research study with potential clinical impact, which was performed, in part, using samples from pediatric leukemia patients.

T-ALL affects mostly children. It is a blood cancer consisting in an uncontrolled growth in the number of T-lymphocytes (white blood cells from the immune system). The onset of the disease can be triggered by different genetic mutations in genes involved in the proliferation and differentiation of T-cells.The identification and study of mutations found in leukemia patients is particularly important to help develop more efficient and targeted therapies.

Researchers now found a group of mutations that affect 9% of the patients with T-ALL and that may originate leukemia in these patients. Most importantly, researchers demonstrated that a set of pharmaceutical drugs can eliminate the effect of these mutations, unraveling a potential therapeutic application for their discovery.

Fourth Nature of this summer
This is the fourth article published by IMM researchers in the Nature publishing group since late July. Cancer, gene expression, neurodegenerative diseases were the topics that were published in this prestigious group of scientific publications, enhancing the quality of biomedical research in Portugal, and in particular, IMM.

Two other works developed at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, this time by the team led by researcher Maria do Carmo Fonseca, were published this summer in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (published on 26 July and 4 September). In these two articles, the researchers show a new form of regulation of gene expression, which changes in part to the classical perspective of how the information contained in genes is regulated for the proper functioning of body cells. Tiago F. Outeiro, in turn, published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

source: www.imm.fm.ul.pt