New software can allow a common laboratory device to virtually separate a whole blood sample into its different cell types and detect medically important gene activity changes specific to any one of those cell types, a study has found.
The technique, which can also recognise changes in one cell type to flag for the likelihood of kidney transplant recipients rejecting their new organs, has been developed by the Stanford University School of Medicine scientists.
The new algorithm may also allow doctors to better identify the onset of cancers, genetic disorders and a variety of other problems.
The study was conducted on whole blood samples from 24 paediatric kidney-transplant patients.
Fifteen of the 24 patients were experiencing symptoms of acute transplant rejection, while nine were in a stable condition, a study published in Nature Methods said.
Using the new algorithm instead of microarrays revealed hundreds of differences in gene expression were found to tell which patients were rejecting their transplants and which were not, researchers said.
The study also disclosed that these changes were largely limited to one particular cell type – the monocytes, according to dnaindia.com.
