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Saleh AH, Samuel N, Juraschka K, Saleh MH, Taylor MD, Fehlings MG. The biology of ependymomas and emerging novel therapies. Nat Rev Cancer 2022; 22:208-222. [PMID: 35031778 DOI: 10.1038/s41568-021-00433-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/01/2021] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
Ependymomas are rare central nervous system tumours that can arise in the brain's supratentorial region or posterior fossa, or in the spinal cord. In 1924, Percival Bailey published the first comprehensive study of ependymomas. Since then, and especially over the past 10 years, our understanding of ependymomas has grown exponentially. In this Review, we discuss the evolution in knowledge regarding ependymoma subgroups and the resultant clinical implications. We also discuss key oncogenic and tumour suppressor signalling pathways that regulate tumour growth, the role of epigenetic dysregulation in the biology of ependymomas, and the various biological features of ependymoma tumorigenesis, including cell immortalization, stem cell-like properties, the tumour microenvironment and metastasis. We further review the limitations of current therapies such as relapse, radiation-induced cognitive deficits and chemotherapy resistance. Finally, we highlight next-generation therapies that are actively being explored, including tyrosine kinase inhibitors, telomerase inhibitors, anti-angiogenesis agents and immunotherapy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amr H Saleh
- MD Program, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Nardin Samuel
- Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Kyle Juraschka
- Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Mohammad H Saleh
- Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Michael D Taylor
- Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Michael G Fehlings
- Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
- Division of Neurosurgery, University Health Network, Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada.
- Krembil Neuroscience Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada.
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Lim KY, Lee K, Shim Y, Park JW, Kim H, Kang J, Won JK, Kim SK, Phi JH, Park CK, Chung CK, Yun H, Park SH. Molecular subtyping of ependymoma and prognostic impact of Ki-67. Brain Tumor Pathol 2021; 39:1-13. [PMID: 34812989 PMCID: PMC8752536 DOI: 10.1007/s10014-021-00417-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/06/2021] [Accepted: 10/26/2021] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
Although ependymomas (EPNs) have similar histopathology, they are heterogeneous tumors with diverse immunophenotypes, genetics, epigenetics, and different clinical behavior according to anatomical locations. We reclassified 141 primary EPNs from a single institute with immunohistochemistry (IHC) and next-generation sequencing (NGS). Supratentorial (ST), posterior fossa (PF), and spinal (SP) EPNs comprised 12%, 41%, and 47% of our cohort, respectively. Fusion genes were found only in ST-EPNs except for one SP-EPN with ZFTA-YAP1 fusion, NF2 gene alterations were found in SP-EPNs, but no driver gene was present in PF-EPNs. Surrogate IHC markers revealed high concordance rates between L1CAM and ZFTA-fusion and H3K27me3 loss or EZHIP overexpression was used for PFA-EPNs. The 7% cut-off of Ki-67 was sufficient to classify EPNs into two-tiered grades at all anatomical locations. Multivariate analysis also delineated that a Ki-67 index was the only independent prognostic factor in both overall and progression-free survivals. The gain of chromosome 1q and CDKN2A/2B deletion were associated with poor outcomes, such as multiple recurrences or extracranial metastases. In this study, we propose a cost-effective schematic diagnostic flow of EPNs by the anatomical location, three biomarkers (L1CAM, H3K27me3, and EZHIP), and a cut-off of a 7% Ki-67 labeling index.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ka Young Lim
- Department of Pathology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea
| | - Kwanghoon Lee
- Department of Pathology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea
| | - Yumi Shim
- Department of Pathology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea
| | - Jin Woo Park
- Department of Pathology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea
| | - Hyunhee Kim
- Department of Pathology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea
| | - Jeongwan Kang
- Department of Pathology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea
| | - Jae Kyung Won
- Department of Pathology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea
| | - Seung-Ki Kim
- Department of Neurosurgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea
| | - Ji Hoon Phi
- Department of Neurosurgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea
| | - Chul-Kee Park
- Department of Neurosurgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea
| | - Chun-Kee Chung
- Department of Neurosurgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea
| | - Hongseok Yun
- Department of Precision Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea
| | - Sung-Hye Park
- Department of Pathology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea. .,Institute of Neuroscience, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongo-gu, Seoul, 03080, Republic of Korea.
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DNA 5-hydroxymethylcytosine in pediatric central nervous system tumors may impact tumor classification and is a positive prognostic marker. Clin Epigenetics 2021; 13:176. [PMID: 34538273 PMCID: PMC8451154 DOI: 10.1186/s13148-021-01156-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2021] [Accepted: 08/18/2021] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Background Nucleotide-specific 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) remains understudied in pediatric central nervous system (CNS) tumors. 5hmC is abundant in the brain, and alterations to 5hmC in adult CNS tumors have been reported. However, traditional approaches to measure DNA methylation do not distinguish between 5-methylcytosine (5mC) and its oxidized counterpart 5hmC, including those used to build CNS tumor DNA methylation classification systems. We measured 5hmC and 5mC epigenome-wide at nucleotide resolution in glioma, ependymoma, and embryonal tumors from children, as well as control pediatric brain tissues using tandem bisulfite and oxidative bisulfite treatments followed by hybridization to the Illumina Methylation EPIC Array that interrogates over 860,000 CpG loci.
Results Linear mixed effects models adjusted for age and sex tested the CpG-specific differences in 5hmC between tumor and non-tumor samples, as well as between tumor subtypes. Results from model-based clustering of tumors was used to test the relation of cluster membership with patient survival through multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression. We also assessed the robustness of multiple epigenetic CNS tumor classification methods to 5mC-specific data in both pediatric and adult CNS tumors. Compared to non-tumor samples, tumors were hypohydroxymethylated across the epigenome and tumor 5hmC localized to regulatory elements crucial to cell identity, including transcription factor binding sites and super-enhancers. Differentially hydroxymethylated loci among tumor subtypes tended to be hypermethylated and disproportionally found in CTCF binding sites and genes related to posttranscriptional RNA regulation, such as DICER1. Model-based clustering results indicated that patients with low 5hmC patterns have poorer overall survival and increased risk of recurrence. Our results suggest 5mC-specific data from OxBS-treated samples impacts methylation-based tumor classification systems giving new opportunities for further refinement of classifiers for both pediatric and adult tumors. Conclusions We identified that 5hmC localizes to super-enhancers, and genes commonly implicated in pediatric CNS tumors were differentially hypohydroxymethylated. We demonstrated that distinguishing methylation and hydroxymethylation is critical in identifying tumor-related epigenetic changes. These results have implications for patient prognostication, considerations of epigenetic therapy in CNS tumors, and for emerging molecular neuropathology classification approaches. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13148-021-01156-9.
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Zhao F, Zhang ZW, Zhang J, Zhang S, Zhang H, Zhao C, Chen Y, Luo L, Tong WM, Li C, Niu Y, Liu P. Loss of 5-Hydroxymethylcytosine as an Epigenetic Signature That Correlates With Poor Outcomes in Patients With Medulloblastoma. Front Oncol 2021; 11:603686. [PMID: 33718152 PMCID: PMC7945595 DOI: 10.3389/fonc.2021.603686] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2020] [Accepted: 01/08/2021] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Medulloblastoma, as the most common malignant brain tumor in children, exhibits highly dysregulated DNA methylation. The novel epigenetic marker—5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) plays essential role in gene regulation during brain development and in brain tumors. However, the biological and clinical implications of 5hmC in medulloblastoma are still unclear. Here, we detected global 5hmC levels in two independent medulloblastoma patient cohorts (discovery cohort: n = 81; validation cohort: n = 171) using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis. Immunohistochemistry was used to identify the cell proliferation and expression of Ten-eleven translocation 1 and 2 (TET1/2). The prognostic impacts of covariates on progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were evaluated using multivariate Cox hazards regression models. We observed that global 5hmC levels were decreased in medulloblastomas compared to normal cerebellums (P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that low global 5hmC levels correlated with poor PFS and OS rates (discovery cohort: PFS: P = 0.003, OS: P = 0.002; validation cohort: PFS: P = 0.0002, OS: P = 0.001). Immunohistochemistry showed an inverse correlation between 5hmC score and Ki-67 index (r = -0.747, P < 0.0001). Moreover, 5hmC score in MB samples was associated with nuclear expression of TET1 (r = -0.419, P = 0.003) and TET2 (r = -0.399, P = 0.005) proteins. Our study demonstrates that loss of 5hmC is an epigenetic biomarker in medulloblastomas. Our results indicate that 5hmC could be a candidate prognostic indicator for improving survival prediction of risk stratification in patients with medulloblastoma.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fu Zhao
- Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Tian Tan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.,Department of Neural Reconstruction, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
| | - Zhi-Wei Zhang
- Department of Pathology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.,Neuroscience Center, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Jing Zhang
- Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Tian Tan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
| | - Shun Zhang
- Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Tian Tan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.,Department of Neural Reconstruction, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
| | - Heng Zhang
- Department of Neural Reconstruction, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
| | - Chi Zhao
- Department of Neuro-Oncology, Sanbo Brain Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
| | - Yang Chen
- Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
| | - Lin Luo
- Department of Pathology, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
| | - Wei-Min Tong
- Department of Pathology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.,Neuroscience Center, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Chunde Li
- Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Tian Tan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.,Department of Neural Reconstruction, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
| | - Yamei Niu
- Department of Pathology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.,Neuroscience Center, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Pinan Liu
- Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Tian Tan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.,Department of Neural Reconstruction, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
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