UC Berkeley-TGen scientists discover gene mutation linked to increasingly common type of blood cancer

June 20, 2009

By hammersmith

[Source: TGen] – California and Arizona researchers have identified a gene variant that carries nearly twice the risk of developing an increasingly common type of blood cancer, according to a study published online today by the science journal Nature Genetics.

Investigators at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) and at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) found that mutations in a gene called C6orf15, or STG, are associated with the risk of developing follicular lymphoma. This is a cancer of the body’s disease-fighting network whose rates have nearly doubled in the past three decades.

In the first genome-wide association study of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, scientists at UC Berkeley and TGen identified a SNP – a single nucleotide polymorphism – that could determine susceptibility to follicular lymphoma. The SNP, a DNA variant within the more than 3-billion base pairs in the human genome, was identified as rs6457327.

For more information: UC Berkeley-TGen scientists discover gene mutation linked to increasingly common type of blood cancer