(Press-News.org) LOS ANGELES (July 9, 2015) - After generating new brain tumor models, Cedars-Sinai scientists in the Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute identified the role of a family of genes underlying tumor growth in a wide spectrum of high grade brain tumors.
"With these new genetic findings, our group of researchers plan to develop targeted therapeutics that we hope will one day be used treat patients with high grade brain tumors and increase their survival," said Joshua Breunig, PhD, a research scientist in the Brain Program at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute and lead author of the research study published in the journal Cell Reports.
High grade brain tumors, known as gliomas, are difficult to treat with only a single digit five-year survival rate. Most patients treated for primary gliomas develop into secondary gliomas, which are almost always fatal.
"Any given tumor can harbor a variety of different combinations of mutations," said Moise Danielpour, MD, Vera and Paul Guerin Family Chair in Pediatric Neurosurgery, director of the Pediatric Neurosurgery Program and the Center for Pediatric Neurosciences in the Maxine Dunitz Children's Health Center and last author on the study. "Despite advances in radiation and chemotherapy, there are currently no effective curative regimens for treatment for these diverse tumors."
Researchers first modeled high grade brain tumors from resident stem cells inside the brain, using a cutting edge method of rapid modeling that can create up to five distinct tumor models within 45 minutes.
After effectively modeling high grade brain tumors, researchers identified the Ets family of genes as contributors to glioma brain tumors. These Ets factors function to regulate the behavior of tumor cells by controlling expression of genes necessary for tumor growth and cell fate. When expression of the Ets genes is blocked, researchers can identify and strategize novel treatment therapies.
"The ability to rapidly model unique combinations of driver mutations from a patient's tumor enhances our quest to create patient-specific animal models of human brain tumors," added Danielpour.
Immediate next steps involve testing the function of each individual Ets factor to determine their specific role in tumor progression and recurrence after treatment.
INFORMATION:
Additional Cedars-Sinai scientists involved in the study include Breunig Laboratory research associates Rachelle Levy, BS; C. Danielle Antonuk, MS; Jessica Molina Aravena, BS; Marina Dutra-Clarke, BA; Hannah Park; Aslam Abbasi Akhtar, MS; Gi Bum Kim, BA and Serguei I. Bannykh, MD. Roel G. W. Verhaak and Xin Hu also contributed to the study.
In addition to Cedars-Sinai support from the Board of Governor's Regenerative Medicine Institute and the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, funding for this novel work was supported by the Margaret E. Early Foundation, the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, (CIRM), the Smidt Family Foundation and the Paul and Vera Guerin Family Foundation.
Citation: Cell Reports: 2015 July: Ets factors regulate neural stem cell depletion and gliogenesis in Ras pathway-driven glioma.
Tropical Storm Ela was born in the western-most part of the Eastern Pacific Ocean but has become the Central Pacific's first named storm. NASA's Aqua satellite took a look at the storm that's already battling wind shear to survive.
After developing as a depression on July 8, Tropical Depression 4E crossed over the 140 degree West longitude line that separates the Eastern Pacific from the Central Pacific Ocean region. The depression strengthened into a tropical storm early on July 9, taking a name from the Eastern Pacific tropical cyclone list and being renamed Ela.
When ...
Traumatic spinal cord injuries are increasing with the population, and incidence is higher in older individuals, according to a Vanderbilt study that was published in the June 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study, which analyzed data from 63,109 patients with acute traumatic spinal cord injury from 1993 to 2012, will help target specific populations for preventive measures, said lead author Nitin B. Jain, M.D., M.S.P.H, associate professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
"We find that spinal cord injury as a result of falls is ...
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (7/9/2015) -- Draining tropical peatlands for oil palm plantations may result in nearly twice as much carbon loss as official estimates, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment and the Union of Concerned Scientists in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Peatlands -- waterlogged, organic soils -- have developed over thousands of years as carbon storage systems. In Southeast Asia, peat swamp forests cover about 250,000 square kilometers, a land area about the size of Michigan. In ...
Scientists at the University of East Anglia in collaboration with the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona have found a way to separate the medical benefits of cannabis from its unwanted side effects.
The research comes from the team that discovered how the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, known as THC, reduces tumour growth in cancer patients.
Their latest findings, published today in the journal PLOS Biology, reveal how the cognitive effects of THC are triggered by a pathway which is separate from some of its other effects.
That pathway involves both a ...
Neutralizing antibodies (Nabs) are immune proteins that recognize, bind to, and trigger the elimination of virus before it can establish a chronic infection. How to elicit a potent Nab response capable of protecting against different HIV subtypes and against different modes of infection is critical to the development of an AIDS vaccine. Two studies published on July 9th in PLOS Pathogens provide results on Nabs that could help guide vaccine design. One shows what type of Nab "repertoire" can be generated following superinfection, and the second one examines the efficacy ...
SALT LAKE CITY, July 9, 2015 - More than a quarter of the rain and snow that falls on continents reaches the oceans as runoff. Now a new study helps show where the rest goes: two-thirds of the remaining water is released by plants, more than a quarter lands on leaves and evaporates and what's left evaporates from soil and from lakes, rivers and streams.
"The question is, when rain falls on the landscape, where does it go?" says University of Utah geochemist Gabe Bowen, senior author of the study published today in the journal Science. "The water on the continents sustains ...
Global warming is putting the squeeze on bumblebees. In the most comprehensive study ever conducted of the impacts of climate change on critical pollinators, scientists have discovered that global warming is rapidly shrinking the area where these bees are found in both North America and Europe.
Researchers examined more than 420,000 historical and current records of many species of bumblebees--and confirm that bumblebees are in steep decline at a continental scale because of climate change. The new research is reported in the journal Science.
ECONOMIC THREATS
This ...
The discovery of a fiber-reinforced, concrete-like rock formed in the depths of a dormant supervolcano could help explain the unusual ground swelling that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city and inspire durable building materials in the future, Stanford scientists say.
The "natural concrete" at the Campi Flegrei volcano is similar to Roman concrete, a legendary compound invented by the Romans and used to construct the Pantheon, the Coliseum, and ancient shipping ports throughout the Mediterranean.
"This implies the existence of a natural process in the subsurface ...
Researchers from the University of Calgary and University of Ottawa have made an astonishing find when it comes to the habitat range of bumble bees, and the results are troubling.
Findings to be published in the Journal Science, demonstrate that climate change is having a significant impact on bumblebee species in North America and Europe.
Bumblebees are losing vital habitat in the southern regions of North America and Europe, which is cause for concern but another pressing issue is that bumblebee species generally haven't expanded north," explains Paul Galpern, Assistant ...
TORONTO, July 9, 2015 - Bumblebees are rapidly declining in both North America and Europe, and a new study points to climate change as the major factor. The study, a comprehensive analysis of how climate change impacts these critical pollinators, was published in Science today.
The research shows that bumblebees are losing large amounts of the southern portion of their ranges, but unlike other species which are compensating by moving further north as the climate warms, bumblebees are not heading north. Their range areas are compressing with rapid warming and this is causing ...