A team of researchers from the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital — Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project (PCGP) has mapped the intricate changes in the "epigenetic" organization of the nucleus to determine how retinal cells transition from immature cells to mature retinal neurons, and have also mapped the epigenome of retinoblastoma cells as they turn cancerous.
According to researchers, the data is an invaluable resource for discovering the still-unknown cellular origin of retinoblastoma. Additionally, the findings will allow scientists to explore pathways that trigger adult retinal diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinitis pigmentosa.
The research was recently published in the journal Neuron.
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Source: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital