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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Sarra Ryan, Professor David Elliott, Professor David Ellison, Professor Simon BaileyORCiD, Professor Steven CliffordORCiD
BACKGROUND: Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumour of childhood. The identification of critical genes involved in its pathogenesis will be central to advances in our understanding of its molecular basis, and the development of improved therapeutic approaches. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We performed a SNP-array based genome-wide copy number analysis in medulloblastoma cell lines, to identify regions of genomic amplification and homozygous deletion, which may harbour critical disease genes. A series of novel and established medulloblastoma defects were detected (MYC amplification (n = 4), 17q21.31 high-level gain (n = 1); 9p21.1-p21.3 (n = 1) and 6q23.1 (n = 1) homozygous deletion). Most notably, a novel recurrent region of genomic amplification at 8q24.22-q24.23 was identified (n = 2), and selected for further investigation. Additional analysis by interphase fluorescence in situ hybridisation (iFISH), PCR-based mapping and SNP-array revealed this novel amplification at 8q24.22-q24.23 is independent of MYC amplification at 8q24.21, and is unique to medulloblastoma in over 800 cancer cell lines assessed from different tumour types, suggesting it contains key genes specifically involved in medulloblastoma development. Detailed mapping identified a 3Mb common minimal region of amplification harbouring 3 coding genes (ZFAT1, LOC286094, KHDRBS3) and two genes encoding micro-RNAs (hsa-miR-30b, hsa-miR-30d). Of these, only expression of hsa-miR-30b, hsa-miR-30d and KHDRBS3 correlated with copy number status, and all three of these transcripts also displayed evidence of elevated expression in sub-sets of primary medulloblastomas, measured relative to the normal cerebellum. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These data implicate hsa-miR-30b, hsa-miR-30d and KHDRBS3 as putative oncogenic target(s) of a novel recurrent medulloblastoma amplicon at 8q24.22-q24.23. Our findings suggest critical roles for these genes in medulloblastoma development, and further support the contribution of micro-RNA species to medulloblastoma pathogenesis.
Author(s): Lu Y, Ryan SL, Elliott DJ, Bignell GR, Futreal PA, Ellison DW, Bailey S, Clifford SC
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: PLoS ONE
Year: 2009
Volume: 4
Issue: 7
Date deposited: 14/01/2010
ISSN (electronic): 1932-6203
Publisher: Public Library of Science
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0006159
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006159
Notes: This work was funded by grants from the Katie Trust and Cancer Research UK (C8464/A5497). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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