Twins help identify pre-leukemic cells

OXFORD, England, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Four-year-old British twins have given scientists clues to how childhood leukemia begins.

Researchers in Britain, Italy and Japan say the twins -- one with the disease and the leukemia-free -- have given them the opportunity to discover a stem cell for the most common form of childhood leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, known as ALL.

Tariq Enver of the University of Oxford and his colleagues said that because the twins had shared a placenta and a blood supply in utero, studying the healthy twin's blood might offer a view of what the blood of the other twin was like before she got sick.

In the healthy twin's blood, the researchers found a tiny number of pre-leukemic stem cells -- about 0.002 percent of all cells drawn, reported the journal Science.

While the pre-leukemic stem cells have been identified, the researchers said they don't know what happens to make the pre-leukemic cells turn into leukemia.