Scientists reported the first link ever found between cancer and a type of genetic defect, called copy number variation, characterized by missing or extra bits of DNA.
The breakthrough came in a study on neuroblastoma, a devastating pediatric disease of the nervous system that accounts for 15 percent of all cancer deaths among young children.
Researchers led by John Maris of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia discovered that a copy number variation (CNV) on chromosome 1 can play a key role in the development of the disease, which strikes most commonly in infancy and is often fatal.
The absent stretch of DNA occurs within a group of genes involved in the development of the nervous system, and affects how much one of these genes is manufactured within both normal and the cancerous cells.
"This is a brand new area -- we never suspected that this family of genes played a role in neuroblastoma," Maris said in an phone interview.
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