Atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor (ATRT) is a highly malignant CNS neoplasm whichprimarily occurs in children under three years of age. Due to poor outcomes with intense and toxicmultimodality treatment, new therapies are urgently needed. Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDIs)have been evaluated as novel agents for multiple malignancies and have been shown to function asradiosensitizers. They act as epigenetic modifiers and lead to re-expression of inappropriatelyrepressed genes, proteins, and cellular functions. Due to the underlying chromatin remodeling genemutation in ATRT, HDIs are ideal candidates for therapeutic evaluation. To evaluate the role of HDIsagainst ATRT in vitro, we assessed the effect of drug treatment on proliferation, apoptosis, and geneexpression. Additionally, we examined HDI pretreatment as a radiosensitization strategy for ATRT.MTS and clonogenic assays demonstrated that HDI treatment significantly reduces the proliferativecapacity of BT-12 and BT-16 ATRT cells. Also, the HDI SNDX-275 was able to induce apoptosis in bothcell lines and induced p21Waf1/Cip1 protein expression as measured by Western blot. Evaluation ofdifferential gene expression by microarray and pathway analysis after HDI treatment demonstratedalterations of several key ATRT cellular functions. Finally, we showed that HDI pretreatmenteffectively potentiates the effect of ionizing radiation on ATRT cells as measured by clonogenic assay.These findings suggest that the addition of HDIs to ATRT therapy may prove beneficial, especiallywhen administered in combination with current treatment modalities such as radiation.
Histone deacetylase inhibition decreases proliferation and potentiates the effect of ionizing radiation in atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor cells.
Specimen part, Cell line
View SamplesRhabdoid tumors (RTs) are aggressive tumors of early childhood that occur most often in brain (AT/RTs) or kidney (KRTs). Regardless of location, they are characterized by loss of functional SMARCB1 protein, a component of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex. The aim of this study was to determine genes and biological process dysregulated in common to both AT/RTs and KRTs. Gene expression for AT/RTs was compared to that of other brain tumors and normal brain using microarray data from our lab. Similar analysis was performed for KRTs and other kidney tumors and normal kidney using data from GEO. Dysregulated genes common to both analyses were analyzed for functional significance. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering of RTs identified 3 major subsets: 2 comprised of AT/RTs, and 1 of KRTs. Compared to other tumors, 1187, 663 and 539 genes were dysregulated in each subset, respectively. Only 14 dysregulated genes were common to all 3 subsets. Compared to normal tissue, 5209, 4275 and 2841 genes were dysregulated in each subset, with an overlap of 610 dysregulated genes. Among these genes, processes associated with cell proliferation, MYC activation, and epigenetic dysregulation were common to all 3 RT subsets. The low overlap of dysregulated genes in AT/RTs and KRTs suggests that factors in addition to SMARCB1 loss play a role in determining subsequent gene expression. Drugs which target cell cycle or epigenetic genes may be useful in all RTs. Additionally, targeted therapies tailored to specific RT subset molecular profiles should be considered.
Pediatric rhabdoid tumors of kidney and brain show many differences in gene expression but share dysregulation of cell cycle and epigenetic effector genes.
Specimen part
View SamplesPatients with medulloblastoma are typically treated with a narrow range of therapies, but may experience widely divergent outcomes; 80-90% become long-term survivors while 20% develop incurable recurrence. Transcriptomic profiling has identified four subgroups with different recurrence risks, but outcomes remain variable for individual patients within each subgroup. To gain new insight into why patients with similar-appearing tumors have variable outcomes, we examined how the timing of tumor initiation effects medulloblastomas triggered by a single, common driver mutation. We genetically-engineered mice to express an oncogenic Smo allele starting early in development in the broad lineage of neural stem cells, or later, in the more committed lineage of cerebellar granule neuron progenitors. Both groups developed medulloblastomas and no other tumors. We compared medulloblastoma progression, response to therapy, gene expression profile and cellular heterogeneity, determined by single cell transcriptomic analysis (scRNA-seq). The average transcriptomic profiles of the tumors were similar. However, stem cell-triggered medulloblastomas progressed faster, contained more OLIG2-expressing tumor stem cells, and consistently showed radioresistance. In contrast, progenitor-triggered MBs progressed slower, lost stem cell character over time and were radiosensitive. Progenitor-triggered medulloblastomas also contained more diverse stromal populations, including tumor-associated macrophages, indicating that the timing of oncogenesis affected the subsequent interactions between the tumor and microenvironment. Our findings show that developmental events in tumorigenesis may be impossible to infer from transcriptomic profile, but while remaining cryptic can nevertheless influence tumor composition and the outcome of therapy. Precise understanding of medulloblastoma pathogenesis and prognosis requires supplementing transcriptomic data with biomarkers of cellular heterogeneity.
Cryptic developmental events determine medulloblastoma radiosensitivity and cellular heterogeneity without altering transcriptomic profile.
Specimen part, Treatment
View SamplesMolecular profiling of tumors has proven a valuable tool for identification of prognostic and diagnostic subgroups in medulloblastomas, glioblastomas and other cancers. However, the molecular landscape of atypical teratoid / rhabdoid tumors (AT/RTs) remains largely unexplored. To address this issue, we used microarrays to measure the gene expression profiles of 18 AT/RTs, and performed unsupervised hierarchical clustering to determine molecularly similar subgroups. Four major subgroups (clusters) were identified. These did not conform to gender, tumor location, or presence of monosomy 22. Clusters showed distinct gene signatures and differences in enriched biological processes, including elevated expression of choroid plexus genes in Cluster 4. In addition, survival differed significantly by cluster, with shortest survival (mean 4.7 months) in both Clusters 3 and 4 compared to Clusters 1 and 2 (mean 28.1 months). Analysis showed that multiple bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) pathway genes were up-regulated in the short survival clusters, with BMP4 showing the most significant up-regulation (270-fold). Thus, high expression of BMP pathway genes was negatively associated with survival in this dataset. Our study indicates that molecular subgroups exist within AT/RTs, and that molecular profiling of these comparatively rare tumors may be of diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic value.
High expression of BMP pathway genes distinguishes a subset of atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumors associated with shorter survival.
Sex, Specimen part
View SamplesInflammatory response has been identified as a molecular signature of high-risk Group A ependymoma (EPN). To better understand the biology of this phenotype and aid therapeutic development, transcriptomic data from Group A and B EPN patient tumor samples, and additional malignant and normal brain data, were analyzed to identify the mechanism underlying EPN group A inflammation.
Interleukin-6/STAT3 Pathway Signaling Drives an Inflammatory Phenotype in Group A Ependymoma.
Specimen part, Disease, Disease stage
View SamplesCellular diversity within tumors and reduced lineage commitment can undermine targeted therapy by increasing the probability of treatment-resistant populations. Using single-cell RNA-seq, we analyzed cellular diversity and lineage in medulloblastomas in transgenic, medulloblastoma-prone mice, and responses to the SHH-pathway inhibitor vismodegib. Overall design: Drop-Seq single-cell transcriptome sequencing of 15 mice: 5 Wild Type cerebella, 5 Drug-treated cerebellar tumors and 5 vehicle-treated cerebellar tumros.
scRNA-seq in medulloblastoma shows cellular heterogeneity and lineage expansion support resistance to SHH inhibitor therapy.
Specimen part, Cell line, Treatment, Subject
View SamplesAffimetrix Human Gene 1.1 ST Array profiling of 763 primary medullobalstoma samples used for identification of Medullobastoma subtypes
Intertumoral Heterogeneity within Medulloblastoma Subgroups.
Specimen part
View SamplesWe conducted a genome-wide expression analysis of wild-type males using three cell populations isolated from mitotic, meiotic and post-meiotic phases of spermatogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster. Our approach was to directly isolate testis regions enriched with RNAs from each of the three specific germline phases.
Stage-specific expression profiling of Drosophila spermatogenesis suggests that meiotic sex chromosome inactivation drives genomic relocation of testis-expressed genes.
Specimen part
View SamplesAffymetrix Human Gene 1.1 ST Array profiling of 285 primary medulloblastoma samples.
Subgroup-specific structural variation across 1,000 medulloblastoma genomes.
Sex, Age
View Samplesproliferative effect in MCF7 cells.
Estrogen Receptor β as a Therapeutic Target in Breast Cancer Stem Cells.
Cell line
View Samples