Circulating Nucleic Acids in Plasma and Serum IV, Volume 1075

by Swaminathan, R.; Butt, Asif; Gahan, Peter

• ISBN13: 9781573316279
• ISBN10: 157331627X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-09
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

An accurate, inexpensive, and noninvasive method for the early diagnosis of cancer has been something of a holy grail among cancer researchers, but until recently a method meeting all three criteria has been elusive. Nucleic acids were first discovered in circulation in 1948, but it was not until the 1960s and 70s that patients with autoimmune disease and cancer were discovered to have higher levels of circulating DNA than were detected in in healthy persons.The focus in this volume is on three major applications of the circulating nucleic acids detection method: cancer, fetal medicine, and diseases such as diabetes, stroke, and myocardial infarction. In addition, there are reports on the biology and origins of circulating DNA and RNA and on improved methods for the detection of nucleic acids in plasma and serum.The circulating DNA found in cancer patients has many characteristics in common with their tumors, which made it an attractive candidate for use in the diagnosis and management of patients with malignancies. This method can also be applied to the assessment of the sublinical tumor burden in cancer patients, thus reducing the risk of unnecessary chemotherapy.Detection of nucleic acids circulating in maternal serum means that fetal diagnosis may be possible without resorting to the more dangerous and invasive methods now used (e.g., amniotic fluid and chorionic villus sampling). Detection of problems in the pregnancy such as preeclampsia and intrauterine growth retardation may also become possible through maternal blood samples.In diabetic patients, circulating nucleic acids can be used for the early detection of developments such as retinopathy.The benefits of using circulating nucleic acids in the diagnosis and management of cancer and chronic disease will be realized through earlier detection by means of this less expensive and less invasive testing technique and through its potential for closer monitoring of the disease.NOTE: Annals volumes are available for sale as individual books or as a journal. For information on institutional journal subscriptions, please visit www.blackwellpublishing.com/nyas.ACADEMY MEMBERS: Please contact the New York Academy of Sciences directly to place your order (www.nyas.org). Members of the New York Academy of Science receive full-text access to the Annals online and discounts on print volumes. Please visit www.nyas.org/membership/main.asp for more information about becoming a member.

Author Biography

R. Swaminathan and Asif Butt are the authors of Circulating Nucleic Acids in Plasma and Serum IV, Volume 1075, published by Wiley.

Table of Contents

Welcoming Remarks

Circulating Nicleic Acids in Plasma and Serum Recent Developments

Biology of Circulating Nucleic Acids

Prehistory of CNAPS, the Birth of a Hypothesis: Circulating DNA

Circulating DNA- Intra-Cellular and Intra-Organ Messenger?

Immunological Aspects of Circulating DNA

Biology of Circulating Mrna - Still More Questions Than Answers

Investigation of the Origin of Extracellular RNA in Human Cell Culture

Hypoxia-Induced Membrane-Bound Apoptotic DNA Particles: Potential Mechanism of Fetal DNA in Maternal Plasma

Fetal Nucleic Acids

Fetal Nucleic Acids in Maternal Body Fluids: an Update

Fetal DNA in Maternal Plasma: Progress Through Epigenetics

Cell-Free DNA in Maternal Plasma: Is It a Question of Size?

Fetal Blood Group Genotyping: Present and Future

Placental RNA in Maternal Plasma: Towards Non-Invasive Fetal Gene Expression Profiling

Development and Application of a Real Time Quantitative PCR for Prenatal Detection of Fetal ?O-Thalassemia From Maternal Plasma

Detection of a Paternally Fetal Mutation in Maternal Plasma by the Use of Automatic Sequencing

Occurrence of Neutrophil Extracellular DNA Traps (Nets) in Pre-Eclampsia: a Link with Elevated Levels of Cell-Free DNA?

Use of Bi-Allelic Insertion/Deletion Polymorphisms As a Positive Control for Fetal Genotyping in Maternal Blood: First Clinical Experience

PLAC1 Mrna in Maternal Blood Correlates with Doppler of Uterine Arteries Waveform in Normal Pregnancies At 2nd and 3rd Trimester

Different Approaches for Non-Invasive Prenatal Diagnosis of Genetic Diseases Based On PNA-Mediated Enriched PCR

Detection of Snps in the Plasma of Pregnant Women and in the Urine of Kidney Transplant Recipients by Mass Spectrometry

Non-Invasive Prenatal Diagnostic Assay for the Detection of ?-Thalassaemia

Nucleic Acids and Cancer

Circulating DNA and Lung Cancer

Circulating Nucleic Acids in Plasma/Serum and Tumour Progression: Are Apoptotic Bodies Involved? an Experimental Study in a Rat Cancer Model

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