Functional genomics identifies drivers of medulloblastoma dissemination.

ABSTRACT: Medulloblastomas are malignant brain tumors that arise in the cerebellum in children and disseminate via the cerebrospinal fluid to the leptomeningeal spaces of the brain and spinal cord. Challenged by the poor prognosis for patients with metastatic dissemination, pediatric oncologists have developed aggressive treatment protocols, combining surgery, craniospinal radiation, and high-dose chemotherapy, that often cause disabling neurotoxic effects in long-term survivors. Insights into the genetic control of medulloblastoma dissemination have come from transposon insertion mutagenesis studies. Mobilizing the Sleeping Beauty transposon in cerebellar neural progenitor cells caused widespread dissemination of typically nonmetastatic medulloblastomas in Patched(+/-) mice, in which Shh signaling

SUBMITTER: Mumert M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3463769 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature