14 DAY TRIAL // When an individual gets sick, or suffers from clinical, biochemical and pathological conditions, he or she is very likely to experience the action of blood cells in their own veins. That is to say, in case of the body “malfunctioning,” these cellular agents take it upon themselves to change the way genes are expressed, so as to minimize the damage. A new scientific study, led by a collaboration of French and Norwegian researchers, recently provided more insight into how these blood genes act. They determined that physical conditions, factors pertaining to lifestyle, and various other variables, all play a part in how gene sets are influenced.
Details of the new work appear in the March 12 issue of the open-access scientific journal PLoS Genetics, a publication of the Public Library of Science. The datasets on which the conclusions were based were derived from the Norwegian Woman and Cancer (NOWAC) post-genome study. The team collected approximately 286 blood samples, all from Norwegian women that had entered menopause. Scientists then proceeded to account for differences in the samples from several angles, including how the blood was transported, harvested, stored, the body-mass index (BMI) of the donors, smoking, medication use, exposure to hormone therapy and so on. The blood was collected from the NOWAC post-genome biobank, PhysOrg reports.
The end conclusion of the investigation was that each of these individual differences was mirrored in the blood to a great extent. The wonderful thing about this line of investigation is that it could, in the near future, provide experts with a means of peering very deep within the molecular foundation of disease, in a highly personalized manner. However, the only thing that remains in the way of this becoming a reality is the fact that baseline data for the general population on the nature and extent of variability in blood gene expression is still missing.
The group concluded that failure to identify exposure-specific differences in the expression of blood genes could deprive experts of a very useful diagnostics tool, and also mislead them in further analysis. Biomarkers for exposure, disease progression, diagnosis or prognosis should be actively sought, the team also says, as this could provide doctors with a clearer picture of what they're up against. If the new study goes into mainstream acceptance, then blood gene expression profiling could become a common occurrence in our everyday lives.