World-renowned haematological journal Blood has published on its website the findings of a research group with the Second Hospital Affiliated with the School of Medicine of Zhejiang University, in east China's Zhejiang Province.

The group found that leukemia is caused by the human gene PTPN11, encoding Shp2, and their discovery has drawn wide attention from the world medical circles.

Leukemia, or blood cancer, is a common but destructive malignant tumor in human hemopoietic system.

The incidence of leukemia is the highest among tumor diseases among the youth.

According to Dr. Xu Rongzhen with the Department of Hematology of the hospital, the research group analyzed leukemia patient cell samples, leukemia cell systems of multiple types of people as well as the PTPN11 sequence in the blood cells of normal people. They also studied the expression of Shp2 tyrosine phosphatase and their function system.

They found PTPN11, encoding Shp2, shows abnormal distribution and over-expression in leukemia cells.

In normal blood cells, Shp2 protein is in cytoplasm, but in leukemia cells, that are elevated in large number into the inside plasma membrane and nucleolus.

Such a location struck the researchers that Shp2 might become a new therapeutic target of leukemia.

Xu said, the finding will help provide new countermeasures for leukemia, but there is still a long way to go before producing an effective medicine.

By People's Daily Online