Project description:Novel prognostic subclasses of high-grade astrocytoma are identified and discovered to resemble stages in neurogenesis. One tumor class displaying neuronal lineage markers shows longer survival, while two tumor classes enriched for neural stem cell markers display equally short survival. Poor prognosis subclasses exhibit either markers of proliferation or of angiogenesis and mesenchyme. Analysis of gene expression data is described in Phillips et al., Cancer Cell, 2006. Experiment Overall Design: 77 primary high-grade astrocytomas and 23 matched recurrences were profiled to identify changes in gene expression that relate to both survival and disease progression. Samples include WHO grade III and IV astrocytomas with a wide range of survival times.
Project description:Juvenile pilocytic astrocytoma (JPA) is one of the most common brain tumors in children. The expression profiles of 21 JPAs, determined using Affymetrix GeneChip U133A, were compared with subjects with normal cerebella. The genes involved in neurogenesis, cell adhesion, synaptic transmission, central nervous system development, potassium ion transport, protein dephosphorylation, and cell differentiation were found to be significantly deregulated in JPA. These 21 JPAs were further clustered into two major groups by unsupervised hierarchical clustering using a set of 848 genes with high covariance (0.5-10). Supervised analysis with Significance Analysis of Microarrays software between these two potential subgroups identified a list of significant differentially expressed genes involved in cell adhesion, regulation of cell growth, cell motility, nerve ensheathment, and angiogenesis. Immunostaining of myelin basic protein on paraffin sections derived from 18 incompletely resected JPAs suggests that JPA without myelin basic protein–positively stained tumor cells may have a higher tendency to progress. Experiment Overall Design: Under an Institutional Review Board–approved protocol, brain tumor tissues were obtained, after informed consent, from patients undergoing tumor resection or other tumor-related neurosurgical procedures at the Texas Children's Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine. Samples of normal cerebellar tissue (n = 2) were isolated from surgically removed tissue adjacent to resected tumor tissue. Portions of the tumors were fixed in 10% formaldehyde and embedded in paraffin for sectioning and pathologic reviews, and the residual tissue samples were snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at –80°C for RNA extraction. All samples were obtained at initial diagnosis with no prior exposure to chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Normal fetal brain RNA was obtained from Stratagene (La Jolla, CA) and a normal cerebellum RNA was from Ambion, Inc. (Austin, TX). Total RNA was isolated using Trizol reagent (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) followed by DNase I treatment and clean-up on aRNeasy spin column (Qiagen, Valencia, CA). RNA quality and purity were assessed by agarose gel electrophoresis and absorbance measurement at A260/A280.
Project description:Diffuse astrocytoma of (WHO grade II) has a tendency to progress spontaneously to anaplastic astrocytoma (WHO grade III) and/or glioblastoma (WHO grade IV). However, the molecular basis of astrocytoma progression is still poorly understood. In current study, an essential initial step toward this goal is the establishment of the taxonomy of tumors on the basis of their gene expression profiles. We have used gene expression profiling, unsupervised (hierarchal cluster (HCL) and principal component analysis (PCA)) and supervised (prediction analysis for microarrays (PAM)) learning methods, to demonstrate the presence of three distinct gene expression signatures of astrocytomas (ACMs), which correspond to diffuse or low-grade astrocytoma (WHO grade II), Anaplastic astrocytoma (WHO grade III) and Glioblastoma multiforme (WHO grade IV). We also demonstrate a 171 gene-based classifier that characterize the distinction between these pathologic/molecular subsets of astrocytomas. These results further define molecular subtypes of astrocytomas and may potentially be used to define potential targets and further refine stratification approaches for therapy. In addition, this study demonstrates that combining gene expression analysis with detailed annotated pathway and gene ontology (GO) category resources was applied to highly enriched normal and tumor population; it can yield an understanding of the critical biological mechanism of astrocytomas.
Project description:Juvenile pilocytic astrocytoma (JPA) is one of the most common brain tumors in children. The expression profiles of 21 JPAs, determined using Affymetrix GeneChip U133A, were compared with subjects with normal cerebella. The genes involved in neurogenesis, cell adhesion, synaptic transmission, central nervous system development, potassium ion transport, protein dephosphorylation, and cell differentiation were found to be significantly deregulated in JPA. These 21 JPAs were further clustered into two major groups by unsupervised hierarchical clustering using a set of 848 genes with high covariance (0.5-10). Supervised analysis with Significance Analysis of Microarrays software between these two potential subgroups identified a list of significant differentially expressed genes involved in cell adhesion, regulation of cell growth, cell motility, nerve ensheathment, and angiogenesis. Immunostaining of myelin basic protein on paraffin sections derived from 18 incompletely resected JPAs suggests that JPA without myelin basic proteinâpositively stained tumor cells may have a higher tendency to progress. Experiment Overall Design: Under an Institutional Review Boardâapproved protocol, brain tumor tissues were obtained, after informed consent, from patients undergoing tumor resection or other tumor-related neurosurgical procedures at the Texas Children's Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine. Samples of normal cerebellar tissue (n = 2) were isolated from surgically removed tissue adjacent to resected tumor tissue. Portions of the tumors were fixed in 10% formaldehyde and embedded in paraffin for sectioning and pathologic reviews, and the residual tissue samples were snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at â80°C for RNA extraction. All samples were obtained at initial diagnosis with no prior exposure to chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Normal fetal brain RNA was obtained from Stratagene (La Jolla, CA) and a normal cerebellum RNA was from Ambion, Inc. (Austin, TX). Total RNA was isolated using Trizol reagent (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) followed by DNase I treatment and clean-up on aRNeasy spin column (Qiagen, Valencia, CA). RNA quality and purity were assessed by agarose gel electrophoresis and absorbance measurement at A260/A280.
Project description:Glioblastoma (GBM), the most common brain malignancy, remains fatal with no effective treatment. Analyses of common aberrations in GBM suggest major regulatory pathways associated with disease etiology. However, 90% of GBMs are diagnosed at an advanced stage (primary GBMs), providing no access to early disease stages for assessing disease progression events. As such, both understanding of disease mechanisms and the development of biomarkers and therapeutics for effective disease management are limited. Here, we describe an adult-inducible astrocyte-specific system in genetically engineered mice that queries causation in disease evolution of regulatory networks perturbed in human GBM. Events yielding disease, both engineered and spontaneous, indicate ordered grade-specific perturbations that yield high-grade astrocytomas (anaplastic astrocytomas and GBMs). Impaired retinoblastoma protein RB tumor suppression yields grade II histopathology. Additional activation of v-Ki-ras2 Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (KRAS) network drives progression to grade III disease, and further inactivation of phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) yields GBM. Spontaneous missense mutation of tumor suppressor Trp53 arises subsequent to KRAS activation, but before grade III progression. The stochastic appearance of mutations identical to those observed in humans, particularly the same spectrum of p53 amino acid changes, supports the validity of engineered lesions and the ensuing interpretations of etiology. Absence of isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) mutation, asymptomatic low grade disease, and rapid emergence of GBM combined with a mesenchymal transcriptome signature reflect characteristics of primary GBM and provide insight into causal relationships.
Project description:Diffuse gliomas are a heterogeneous category of primary central nervous system tumors. Due to their infiltrative growth precluding complete surgical resection, most diffuse high-grade gliomas are treated with adjuvant chemotherapy and radiation. Recurrent/progressive diffuse gliomas may show genetic differences when compared to the primary tumors, giving insight into their molecular evolution and mechanisms of treatment resistance. In adult-type diffuse gliomas with or without isocitrate dehydrogenase gene mutations, tumor recurrence/progression can be associated with mutations in genes encoding DNA mismatch repair proteins, leading to a dramatic increase in tumor mutation burden. This phenomenon is closely linked to treatment with the DNA alkylating agent temozolomide, a mainstay of adult diffuse glioma chemotherapeutic management. Post-treatment mismatch repair deficiency and acquired high tumor mutation burden is relatively unexplored in pediatric patients who have recurrent high-grade gliomas. Here, we report a molecular and histological analysis of an institutional cohort of eleven pediatric patients with paired initial and recurrent high-grade astrocytoma samples with intervening temozolomide treatment. We identified three cases with evidence for increased tumor mutation burden at recurrence, including two cases of diffuse hemispheric glioma H3 G34-mutant (one previously reported). We also show that molecular analysis by next-generation DNA sequencing and DNA methylation-based profiling enabled an integrated diagnosis per 2021 World Health Organization criteria in 10 of 11 cases (91%). Our findings indicate that increased tumor mutation burden at post-treatment recurrence is relevant in pediatric-type diffuse high-grade gliomas. Diffuse hemispheric glioma H3 G34-mutant may be particularly susceptible to this phenomenon.
Project description:We previously reported that central nervous system (CNS) inactivation of Nf1 and p53 tumor suppressor genes in mice results in the development of low-grade to high-grade progressive astrocytomas. When the tumors achieve high grade, they are frequently accompanied by Akt activation, reminiscent of the frequent association of PTEN mutations in human high-grade glioma. In the present study, we introduced CNS heterozygosity of Pten into the Nf1/p53 astrocytoma model. Resulting mice had accelerated morbidity, shortened survival, and full penetrance of high-grade astrocytomas. Haploinsufficiency of Pten accelerated formation of grade 3 astrocytomas, whereas loss of Pten heterozygosity and Akt activation coincided with progression into grade 4 tumors. These data suggest that successive loss of each Pten allele may contribute to de novo formation of high-grade astrocytoma and progression into glioblastoma, respectively, thus providing insight into the etiology of primary glioblastoma. The presence of ectopically migrating neural stem/progenitor lineage cells in presymptomatic Pten-deficient mutant brains supports the notion that these tumors may arise from stem/progenitor cells.