Project description:Activation of Sonic Hedgehog signaling through expression of a constitutively active Smoothened allele under control of an aP2 adipocyte-restricted transgene in mice gives rise to aggressive skeletal muscle tumors that display the histologic and molecular characteristics of human embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma with high penetrance. Conditional mouse models of embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma were created by activation of the oncogenic SmoM2 allele by both the non-muscle aP2-Cre or myotube Myogenin-Cre.
Project description:Fusion-positive rhabdomyosarcoma (FP-RMS) driven by the expression of the PAX3-FOXO1 (P3F) fusion oncoprotein is an aggressive subtype of pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma. FP-RMS histologically resembles developing muscle yet occurs throughout the body in areas devoid of skeletal muscle highlighting that FP-RMS is not derived from an exclusively myogenic cell of origin. Here we demonstrate that P3F reprograms mouse and human endothelial progenitors to FP-RMS. We show that P3F expression in aP2-Cre expressing cells reprograms endothelial progenitors to functional myogenic stem cells capable of regenerating injured muscle fibers. Further, we describe a novel FP-RMS mouse model driven by P3F expression and CDKN2A loss in endothelial cells. Additionally, we show that P3F expression in p53 null human iPSCs blocks endothelial directed differentiation and guides cells to become myogenic cells that form FP-RMS tumors in immunocompromised mice. Together these findings demonstrate that FP-RMS can originate from aberrant development of non-myogenic cells driven by P3F.
Project description:Activation of Sonic Hedgehog signaling through expression of a constitutively active Smoothened allele under control of an aP2 adipocyte-restricted transgene in mice gives rise to aggressive skeletal muscle tumors that display the histologic and molecular characteristics of human embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma with high penetrance.
Project description:Genome-wide gene expression in 33 fusion-positive and 25 fusion-negative rhabdomyosarcoma cases was studied using GeneChip Human Genome U133 Plus2 (Affymetrix) Fusion-positive versus fusion-negative rhabdomyosarcoma tumors
