Cancer mutation in dual role
(PHYSorg.com Medicine & Health)

Analyses of cell signals provide insight into the origin of severe inflammatory symptoms that appear in various types of blood cancer and point to possible therapeutic approaches: In around one-fourth of patients suffering from juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML), there is evidence of mutations in the so-called KRAS gene in the leukemia cells. Patients affected by JMML carrying these mutations suffer particularly often from signs of inflammation, such as fever, weight loss, and an abnormal enlargement of the spleen. It was previously unknown how the sometimes severe inflammatory symptoms are connected with the cancer. A team of researchers at the University of Freiburg led by Prof. Dr. Robert Zeiser and Prof. Dr. Tilman Brummer has now demonstrated that the cancer-causing mutation in the KRAS gene is also the cause of the inflammation. The improved understanding of the symptoms will enable doctors to develop new drugs for blocking the progression of leukemia in the body.