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Stability of cord blood RNA measured by house keeping transcripts: relevance for large-scale studies of childhood leukaemia

Leukemia volume 20, pages 2214–2217 (2006)Cite this article

Certain subtypes of childhood acute leukaemia are characterized by specific chromosomal translocations. Interestingly, some of these translocations have been shown to arise in utero as illustrated by their presence in neonatal blood spots from children, who later developed leukaemia.1, 2 Accordingly, information on risk factors for the prenatal emergence of such translocations, most likely representing an initial step in leukaemia development, are important to the understanding of childhood leukaemias.

Fusion gene transcripts resulting from chromosomal translocations can be detected and quantified by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) using generic assays. Applied on cord blood samples, this technology may be relevant in the effort to characterize the epidemiology of pre-leukaemia, that is the prevalence and risk factors for pre-leukaemic cell clones in healthy neonates.3 However, as RNA is very unstable, the sampling process in itself may result in RNA degradation and thus potentially false-negative results. This problem may be particularly pertinent to large-scale studies in which the time frame from sample collection to RNA processing extends beyond a few hours. Moreover, whereas the stability of house keeping and fusion gene transcripts has been assessed in peripheral blood and bone marrow, such information is not available for cord blood (CB) samples.4, 5

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Acknowledgements

The Danish Children's Cancer Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Danish Cancer Research Foundation, the Otto Christensen Foundation, the Heine Hoi Foundation and the Dagmar Marshall Foundation supported this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Pediatric Clinic II, Juliane Marie Center, Copenhagen University Hospital, H:S Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark

    M Olsen & K Schmiegelow

  2. Department of Clinical Immunology, Tissue Typing Laboratory, University Hospital, H:S Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark

    M Olsen & H O Madsen

  3. Division of Epidemiology, Department of Epidemiologic Research, Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark

    H Hjalgrim

  4. Section of Haemato-Oncology, Brookes Lawley Building, Institute of Cancer Research, Sutton, UK

    A Ford

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  1. M Olsen
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  2. H O Madsen
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  3. H Hjalgrim
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  4. A Ford
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  5. K Schmiegelow
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Correspondence to M Olsen.

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Olsen, M., Madsen, H., Hjalgrim, H. et al. Stability of cord blood RNA measured by house keeping transcripts: relevance for large-scale studies of childhood leukaemia. Leukemia 20, 2214–2217 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.leu.2404446

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