Fly With Brain Tumor May Shed Light On Cancer Causing Genes

A study showing how the expression of genes changes when the brain tissue of fruit flies becomes cancerous is published this week in BMC Genomics. As the function of many of these genes is conserved across evolution, the researchers expect their results will help us to understand why human brain tumors develop. The causes of brain tumor development are largely unknown. To investigate this question, researchers from University of Basel, Switzerland and University of Freiburg, Germany, used microarray technology to compare the levels of gene expression in the heads of healthy flies and those with brain cancer.