The VISTA T cell-inhibiting protein found on macrophage immune cells may contribute to poor pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma outcomes, new research finds.
Investigators published an initial report on the method, which they call cfMeDIP-Seq, last week, and are now hoping to move to analysis of samples from longitudinal health studies.
The approach allows scientists to look at single amino acid variants linked to diseases like cancer and could aid the investigation of tumor heterogeneity.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's technology is based on set of patient-cell derived gene signatures for classifying four pancreatic subtypes.
One of the variants leads to increased phosphorylation of a signaling pathway as well as to increased cell proliferation, hinting at how it contributes to disease risk.
A phylogenetic analysis that included multiple samples per patient suggests overlapping driver mutations make their way into multiple metastases in each patient.
