Introduction of Backtracking in Leukemia Research

Backtracking technique is an important technique in leukemia research. There are many of the acquired genetic changes that causes the molecular pathogenesis of leukemia can be well characterized by using backtracking technique. The researchers can trace many of genetic events to fetal origins using sensitive amplification methods.

Why is Backtracking Easy to be done?

1. Simplicity

The relative simplicity of the tumor genetics of the common subtypes of leukemia permitted the tracing becomes easier.

2. Archived Neonatal Blood Spots

There are the archived material in archived neonatal blood spots (ANB or Guthrie cards) form enable the backtracking becomes easier.

Backtracking to Trace Back Mutation Occurred Before Birth

Backtracking is a great technique to trace back the mutation occurred before birth and causing cancer, especially for leukemia. Therefore, before we go any further, we need to know a little bit about the childhood cancer. As we all know, childhood cancer is totally different with most adult cancers. The childhood cancer is relatively short latencies. That means the time between the initiating mutation and clinically diagnosed tumor is very short. We can see this by looking at the difference between the age of the child at diagnosis and the embryonic origin of the organ or tissue from which the cancer arises. This is an advantage for the researcher to trace back the genetic event. As I mentioned before, the availability of ANB has increase the possibility to identify the early or initiating genetic events before the child birth.

Unlike other cancers, leukemia is present in the general circulation without metastasis. It is because leukemia is a liquid form tumor. Thus, the preleukemic stem cells and their differentiated clonal progeny may also present in circulation too. Those cells can be detected on a neonatal blood specimen during birth.

Importance of Backtracking

1. Backtracking helps the researchers to understand the natural history, pathophysiology, and genetic information of various type of childhood cancer. This is important for researchers to deepen the knowledge about childhood cancer especially for leukemia.

2. From backtracking, we can know the exact time period when the key mutational events occur for childhood cancer. This definitely helps the epidemiologic efforts to discover the origin and causes of leukemia.

3. Besides, the information of backtracking is a great resource to know about prenatal mutation. The prenatal mutation is a potential target for early screening and intervention in leukemia.

4. Last but not least, if we can get the positive result from this approach, it is possible for us to use the cord blood for transplantation purposes. It is because the assays mentioned here apply to ANB cards. ANB cards can be used in cord bloods studies.

In conclusion, backtracking is essential or leukemia research. There are so many advantages of using backtracking in leukemia research. This technique will be continuously used for childhood cancer research and also leukemia research. I will describe more about the backtracking in my forthcoming post.

(Reference: Leukemia edited by Chi Wai Eric So)