A new cellular atlas charts, in unprecedented detail, how human B cells are built step by step — and offers a window into how this developmental process goes awry in leukemia.

The KAUST-led investigation provides a sweeping inventory of the genes and regulatory switches that guide early B cell differentiation. This offers a blueprint that could open avenues for both diagnostics and therapies for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), the most common childhood cancer.

“We show that leukemia subtypes line up with distinct regulatory signatures that mirror differentiation in healthy individuals, which may help explain why some leukemias behave differently,” says David Gomez-Cabrero, a computational biologist who co-led the study.

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