Pediatric Brain Tumors Contain Neural Stem Cells

Researchers studying cancers of children have found that pediatric brain tumors contain neural stem-like cells with altered characteristics that may contribute to tumorigenesis.

Investigators at the University of California, Los Angeles (CA, USA), tested whether different pediatric brain tumors, including medulloblastomas and gliomas, contained cells with properties similar to neural stem cells. They reported in the November 26, 2003 online edition of the Proceedings of the [U.S.] National Academy of Sciences that unlike normal neural stem cells, tumor-derived progenitors have an unusual capacity to proliferate and sometimes differentiate into abnormal cells with multiple differentiation markers. Gene expression analysis revealed that both whole tumors and tumor-derived neurospheres expressed many genes characteristic of neural and other stem cells, including CD133, Sox2, musashi-1, bmi-1, maternal embryonic leucine zipper kinase, and phosphoserine phosphatase, with variation from tumor to tumor.

"Our study suggests that pediatric brain tumors develop from cells that have many of the same characteristics as neural stems cells, but that those cells also have an abnormal ability to grow and change. We believe that neural stem cells, found normally within our brain and spinal cords, could transform into cancer cells,” explained senior author Dr. Harley Kornblum, associate professor of pharmacology and pediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles.




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