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Hope for leukemia patients
http://www.sina.com.cn 2004/01/08 10:23  Shanghai Daily

  Chinese scientists have identified a new gene that they said may enhance the success rates of bone marrow transplants for leukemia treatment.

  The discovery of the gene was made at the The Human Leukocyte Antigen Typing Laboratory at the Institute of Blood Transfusion, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

  A 25-year-old woman known as Angel was found to have something abnormal in the length of her HLA-B gene early last year.

  "It looked different compared with normal reaction patterns," said Dr Chen Qiang, a research fellow with the laboratory. "It doesn't seem like a gene mutation. I think it's rare, but I'm not quite sure that it definitely is a new allele."

  An allele is a pair or series of genes that occupy a specific position on a chromosome.

  The laboratory's experts, with the help of their US counterparts, checked all the 1,267 bases of Angel's entire HLA-B gene, using DNA-based typing and molecular cloning methods.

  The result confirmed the existence of a novel allele since there was no match of any combination of the known HLA-B alleles observed so far.

  "The reason I want to become a volunteer donor is simple," Angel said. "I just want to help those who are ill."

  Angel is the only person found to have the new allele named B*5516.

  "I suppose it might be an allele typical of Sichuan Province natives," Dr Chen said. "But we need to develop a special reagent which would help us in our search for the origin. It's still early to make any definitive conclusions."

  B*5516 is not the only new allele ever identified by Chinese researchers. A group of researchers in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, discovered one new allele in 2001 and another two in 2002. About 80 percent of 1,013 known alleles of HLA-A, B, DRB1 were discovered by American scientists.

  In China, 40,000 new leukemia cases emerge each year.

  Currently, there are more than 4 million patients waiting for bone marrow transplants.




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