Genetically Engineered Mouse Model of Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma as a Preclinical Tool

Abstract

Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas or DIPG, is a type of brain tumor that afflicts children and is the leading cause of death in pediatric brain tumor patients. One major obstacle to progress has been the lack of representative animal models that recapitulate the genetic alterations of the human disease in the appropriate cell-of-origin. Recent analysis of human DIPGs have unraveled the following key genetic alterations: K27M H3.3 or H3.1 mutations in 80% of tumors, p53 mutations in 75% of tumors, and focal amplification of components of the RTK/Ras/PI3K pathway in approximately 50% of tumors with 30% of tumors harboring amplification of PDGFR . Using the RCAS/tv-a system, we have previously reported the development of a DIPG model by overexpression of PDGF-B in nestin progenitors of Ink4a-ARF deficient mice. Here we report the development of several improved DIPG models by overexpression of PDGF-B and Cre in nestin progenitors of conditional p53 deficient mice, conditional PTEN mice, and combined conditional p53 and PTEN mice. In addition we have also generated a new DIPG model by overexpression of PDGF-B and Cre in GFAP progenitors of conditional p53 mice. Using expression profiling we note that they are genetically distinct. Lastly, to identify unique aspects of brainstem gliomagenesis we have compared the expression profile of the above described murine DIPG model to cortical gliomas induced by the same genetic alterations and unraveled that pax3 is a differentially expressed transcription factor that is upregulated in DIPGs and not in cortical gliomas.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 2014
Accession Number
ADA620002

Entities

People

  • Oren Becher

Organizations

  • Duke University

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Amino Acids
  • Brain
  • Cell Physiological Processes
  • Cells
  • Chemical Synthesis
  • Chemistry
  • Computational Biology
  • Embryos
  • Genetics
  • Health Services
  • Neoplasms
  • Peptide Growth Factors
  • Proteins
  • Stem Cells
  • Surface Plasmon Resonance
  • Transcription Factors

Fields of Study

  • Biology

Readers

  • Molecular Biology and Genetics
  • Molecular and genetic basis of cancer.
  • Neuroscience

Technology Areas

  • Biotechnology