Credit: Tatjana Hirschmugl
A new study exploits the characteristic epigenetic signatures of childhood tumors to detect, classify and monitor the disease. The scientists analyzed short fragments of tumor DNA that are circulating in the blood. These liquid biopsy analyses exploit the unique epigenetic landscape of bone tumors and do not depend on any genetic alterations, which are rare in childhood cancers. This approach promises to improve personalized diagnostics and, possibly, future therapies of childhood tumors such as Ewing sarcoma. The study has been published in
Nature Communications.
A study led by scientists from St. Anna Children s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI) in collaboration with CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences provides an innovative method for liquid biopsy analysis of childhood tumors. This method exploits the fragmentation patterns of the small DNA fragments that tumors leak into the blood stream, whi