Ascl1 phospho-status regulates neuronal differentiation in a Xenopus developmental model of neuroblastoma.

ABSTRACT: Neuroblastoma (NB), although rare, accounts for 15% of all paediatric cancer mortality. Unusual among cancers, NBs lack a consistent set of gene mutations and, excluding large-scale chromosomal rearrangements, the genome seems to be largely intact. Indeed, many interesting features of NB suggest that it has little in common with adult solid tumours but instead has characteristics of a developmental disorder. NB arises overwhelmingly in infants under 2 years of age during a specific window of development and, histologically, NB bears striking similarity to undifferentiated neuroblasts of the sympathetic nervous system, its likely cells of origin. Hence, NB could be considered a disease of development arising when neuroblasts of the sympathetic nervous system fail to undergo proper different

SUBMITTER: Wylie LA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4415893 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature