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Purpose: Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is an incurable type of pediatric brain cancer, which in the majority of cases is driven by mutations in genes encoding histone 3 (H3K27M). We here determined the preclinical therapeutic potential of combined AXL and HDAC inhibition in these tumors to reverse their mesenchymal, therapy-resistant, phenotype. Experimental Design: We used public databases and patient-derived DIPG cells to identify putative drivers of the mesenchymal transition in these tumors. Patient-derived neurospheres, xenografts, and allografts were used to determine the therapeutic potential of combined AXL/HDAC inhibition for the treatment of DIPG. Results: We identified AXL as a therapeutic target and regulator of the mesenchymal transition in DIPG. Combined AXL and HDAC inhibition had a synergistic and selective antitumor effect on H3K27M DIPG cells. Treatment of DIPG cells with the AXL inhibitor BGB324 and the HDAC inhibitor panobinostat resulted in a decreased expression of mesenchymal and stem cell genes. Moreover, this combination treatment decreased expression of DNA damage repair genes in DIPG cells, strongly sensitizing them to radiation. Pharmacokinetic studies showed that BGB324, like panobinostat, crosses the blood–brain barrier. Consequently, treatment of patient-derived DIPG xenograft and murine DIPG allograft-bearing mice with BGB324 and panobinostat resulted in a synergistic antitumor effect and prolonged survival. Conclusions: Combined inhibition of AXL and HDACs in DIPG cells results in a synergistic antitumor effect by reversing their mesenchymal, stem cell-like, therapy-resistant phenotype. As such, this treatment combination may serve as part of a future multimodal therapeutic strategy for DIPG.

Summary Tumor-educated platelets (TEPs) are potential biomarkers for cancer diagnostics. We employ TEP-derived RNA panels, determined by swarm intelligence, to detect and monitor glioblastoma. We assessed specificity by comparing the spliced RNA profile of TEPs from glioblastoma patients with multiple sclerosis and brain metastasis patients (validation series, n = 157; accuracy, 80%; AUC, 0.81 [95% CI, 0.74–0.89; p < 0.001]). Second, analysis of patients with glioblastoma versus asymptomatic healthy controls in an independent validation series (n = 347) provided a detection accuracy of 95% and AUC of 0.97 (95% CI, 0.95–0.99; p < 0.001). Finally, we developed the digitalSWARM algorithm to improve monitoring of glioblastoma progression and demonstrate that the TEP tumor scores of individual glioblastoma patients represent tumor behavior and could be used to distinguish false positive progression from true progression (validation series, n = 20; accuracy, 85%; AUC, 0.86 [95% CI, 0.70–1.00; p < 0.012]). In conclusion, TEPs have potential as a minimally invasive biosource for blood-based diagnostics and monitoring of glioblastoma patients., Graphical Abstract, Highlights TEP RNA enables blood-based brain tumor diagnostics TEP RNA is dynamic throughout anti-tumor treatment TEP RNA may be employed for therapy monitoring, Sol et al. show that tumor-educated platelets (TEPs) can be employed for detection of glioblastoma. Glioblastoma TEP RNA profiles can be differentiated from patients with metastatic brain cancer or MS. Furthermore, the tumor signals in TEPs are dynamic, indicating that TEPs can be employed for blood-based therapy monitoring.

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is an aggressive type of brainstem cancer occurring mainly in children, for which there currently is no effective therapy. Current efforts to develop novel therapeutics for this tumor make use of primary cultures of DIPG cells, maintained either as adherent monolayer in serum containing medium, or as neurospheres in serum-free medium. In this manuscript, we demonstrate that the response of DIPG cells to targeted therapies in vitro is mainly determined by the culture conditions. We show that particular culture conditions induce the activation of different receptor tyrosine kinases and signal transduction pathways, as well as major changes in gene expression profiles of DIPG cells in culture. These differences correlate strongly with the observed discrepancies in response to targeted therapies of DIPG cells cultured as either adherent monolayers or neurospheres. With this research, we provide an argument for the concurrent use of both culture conditions to avoid false positive and false negative results due to the chosen method.

The COX-2 protein is frequently overexpressed in human malignant gliomas. This expression has been associated with their aggressive growth characteristics and poor prognosis for patients. Targeting the COX-2 pathway might improve glioma therapy. In this study, the effects of the selective COX-2 inhibitor meloxicam alone and in combination with irradiation were investigated on human glioma cells in vitro. A panel of three glioma cell lines (D384, U87 and U251) was used in the experiments from which U87 cells expressed constitutive COX-2. The response to meloxicam and irradiation (dose-range of 0–6andnbsp;Gy) was determined by the clonogenic assay, cell proliferation was evaluated by growth analysis and cell cycle distribution by FACS. 24–72andnbsp;h exposure to 250–750 μM meloxicam resulted in a time and dose dependent growth inhibition with an almost complete inhibition after 24andnbsp;h for all cell lines. Exposure to 750andnbsp;μM meloxicam for 24 h increased the fraction of cells in the radiosensitive G2/M cell cycle phase in D384 (18–27%) and U251 (17–41%) cells. 750 μM meloxicam resulted in radiosensitization of D384 (DMF:2.19) and U87 (DMF:1.25) cells, but not U251 cells (DMF:1.08). The selective COX-2 inhibitor meloxicam exerted COX-2 independent growth inhibition and radiosensitization of human glioma cells.

Summary Blood-based liquid biopsies, including tumor-educated blood platelets (TEPs), have emerged as promising biomarker sources for non-invasive detection of cancer. Here we demonstrate that particle-swarm optimization (PSO)-enhanced algorithms enable efficient selection of RNA biomarker panels from platelet RNA-sequencing libraries (n = 779). This resulted in accurate TEP-based detection of early- and late-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (n = 518 late-stage validation cohort, accuracy, 88%; AUC, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.92–0.96; p < 0.001; n = 106 early-stage validation cohort, accuracy, 81%; AUC, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.83–0.95; p, Graphical Abstract, Highlights • Tumor-educated platelet (TEP) RNA profiles allow for blood-based cancer diagnostics • Inflammatory conditions only minimally confound TEP-based cancer detection • Swarm intelligence algorithms enable efficient selection of biomarker gene panels • TEP gene panels enable support vector machine-based classification of lung cancer, Best et al. use particle-swarm optimization algorithms and RNA-seq of tumor-educated platelets from patients to generate RNA sets capable of identifying patients with non-small-cell lung cancer, including those having early stage, from individuals without cancer, including those having inflammatory conditions.

Malignant glial tumors are highly invasive brain tumors that carry a poor prognosis despite aggressive multimodal treatment strategies. The most frequently observed malignant glial tumors are high-grade gliomas (HGGs): WHO grade III anaplastic astrocytoma (AA), anaplastic oligodendroglioma, and WHO grade IV glioblastoma (GBM).1 Intracranial WHO grades II and III ependymomas are very rare in adults, but ependymomas are observed in up to 10% of all brain tumors in children.2,3 In adults, HGG is the most common group of primary malignant glial brain tumors, mainly comprising GBM that arises either as a primary (in 91% of cases) or as a secondary GBM after malignant transformation of a lower grade diffuse glioma (in 9% of cases). These secondary GBMs are more often observed in younger patients and usually harbor IDH1/2 mutations.4 In children, HGG is much more rare, with AA and GBM occurring in 2.8% and 1.9% of all childhood brain tumor cases, respectively.5 Standard therapy consists of surgery, aimed at maximal resection, followed by chemo-radiotherapy with temozolomide and maintenance temozolomide. Maximal surgery, eventually followed by focal radiotherapy, is the standard of care in both adult and childhood ependymoma. Chemotherapy has not proven to be of benefit in the treatment of ependymoma, warranting the need for the identification of new drug targets.2,3 Even with these multimodal regimens, prognosis still remains poor with 3-year overall survival (OS) rates of 16% (±4) in adult GBM, and 22% (±5) in childhood AA/GBM.6–8 Because of the poor outcome, especially in patients who are resistant to temozolomide, new therapies are warranted. Gene expression profiling has significantly increased insight into glioma and ependymoma tumor biology and has already resulted in the identification of several putative therapeutic targets.9,10 Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network11,12 information on deregulated protein expression in tumor tissues might provide new clues on tumor cell behavior in its microenvironment, and this might allow for the identification of proteins overexpressed in tumor cells as compared with the normal microenvironment. To this purpose, we investigated which proteins are differentially overexpressed in malignant glial tumors compared with normal brain tissues using the Human Protein Atlas (HPA), a publicly available antibody-based proteomics platform.13,14 We identified pre-B-cell leukemia homeobox (PBX) interacting protein 1 (PBXIP1), also known as hematopoietic PBX-interacting protein (HPIP), as a protein overexpressed in astrocytoma, GBM, and ependymoma tissues, showed it to be a novel astrocyte progenitor cell-specific marker during human brain development, and provided evidence that it drives GBM cell proliferation and migration.

BACKGROUND: Glioblastomas exhibit a high level of chemotherapeutic resistance, including to the antimitotic agents vincristine and taxol. During the mitotic agent-induced arrest, glioblastoma cells are able to perform damage-control and self-repair to continue proliferation. Monopolar spindle 1 (MPS1/TTK) is a checkpoint kinase and a gatekeeper of the mitotic arrest.METHODS: We used glioblastoma cells to determine the expression of MPS1 and to determine the effects of MPS1 inhibition on mitotic errors and cell viability in combination with vincristine and taxol. The effect of MPS1 inhibition was assessed in different orthotopic glioblastoma mouse models (n = 3-7 mice/group). MPS1 expression levels were examined in relation to patient survival.RESULTS: Using publicly available gene expression data, we determined that MPS1 overexpression corresponds positively with tumor grade and negatively with patient survival (two-sided t test, P < .001). Patients with high MPS1 expression (n = 203) had a median and mean survival of 487 and 913 days (95% confidence intervals [CI] = 751 to 1075), respectively, and a 2-year survival rate of 35%, whereas patients with intermediate MPS1 expression (n = 140) had a median and mean survival of 858 and 1183 days (95% CI = 1177 to 1189), respectively, and a 2-year survival rate of 56%. We demonstrate that MPS1 inhibition by RNAi results in sensitization to antimitotic agents. We developed a selective small-molecule inhibitor of MPS1, MPS1-IN-3, which caused mitotic aberrancies in glioblastoma cells and, in combination with vincristine, induced mitotic checkpoint override, increased aneuploidy, and augmented cell death. MPS1-IN-3 sensitizes glioblastoma cells to vincristine in orthotopic mouse models (two-sided log-rank test, P < .01), resulting in prolonged survival without toxicity.CONCLUSIONS: Our results collectively demonstrate that MPS1, a putative therapeutic target in glioblastoma, can be selectively inhibited by MPS1-IN-3 sensitizing glioblastoma cells to antimitotic drugs.

Contains fulltext : 118630.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Pediatric high-grade gliomas (pHGG), including diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPG), are the leading cause of cancer-related death in children. While it is clear that surgery (if possible), and radiotherapy are beneficial for treatment, the role of chemotherapy for these tumors is still unclear. Therefore, we performed an in vitro drug screen on primary glioma cells, including three DIPG cultures, to determine drug sensitivity of these tumours, without the possible confounding effect of insufficient drug delivery. This screen revealed a high in vitro cytotoxicity for melphalan, doxorubicine, mitoxantrone, and BCNU, and for the novel, targeted agents vandetanib and bortezomib in pHGG and DIPG cells. We subsequently determined the expression of the drug efflux transporters P-gp, BCRP1, and MRP1 in glioma cultures and their corresponding tumor tissues. Results indicate the presence of P-gp, MRP1 and BCRP1 in the tumor vasculature, and expression of MRP1 in the glioma cells themselves. Our results show that pediatric glioma and DIPG tumors per se are not resistant to chemotherapy. Treatment failure observed in clinical trials, may rather be contributed to the presence of drug efflux transporters that constitute a first line of drug resistance located at the blood-brain barrier or other resistance mechanism. As such, we suggest that alternative ways of drug delivery may offer new possibilities for the treatment of pediatric high-grade glioma patients, and DIPG in particular.

Poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) is a protein involved in single strand break repair. Recently, PARP inhibitors have shown considerable promise in the treatment of several cancers, both in monotherapy and in combination with cytotoxic agents. Synthetic lethal action of PARP inhibitors has been observed in tumors with mutations in double strand break repair pathways. In addition, PARP inhibition potentially enhances sensitivity of tumor cells to DNA damaging agents, including radiotherapy. Aim of this study is to determine the radiosensitizing properties of the PARP inhibitor Olaparib in childhood medulloblastoma, ependymoma and high grade glioma (HGG). Increased PARP1 expression was observed in medulloblastoma, ependymoma and HGG, as compared to non-neoplastic brain tissue. Pediatric high grade glioma, medulloblastoma and ependymoma gene expression profiling revealed that high PARP1 expression is associated with poor prognosis. Cell growth inhibition assays with Olaparib resulted in differential sensitivity, with IC50 values ranging from 1.4 to 8.4 µM, irrespective of tumor type and PARP1 protein expression. Sensitization to radiation was observed in medulloblastoma, ependymoma and HGG cell lines with subcytotoxic concentrations of Olaparib, which coincided with persistence of double strand breaks. Combining PARP inhibitors with radiotherapy in clinical studies in childhood high grade brain tumors may improve therapeutic outcome.

Background:The DNA repair protein O 6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) can cause resistance to the alkylating drug temozolomide (TMZ). The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the MGMT status, determined by means of several techniques and methods, and the cytotoxic response to TMZ in 11 glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cell lines and 5 human tumour cell lines of other origins.Methods:Cell survival was analysed by clonogenic assay. The MGMT protein levels were assessed by western blot analysis. The MGMT promoter methylation levels were determined using methylation-specific multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MS-MLPA) and quantitative real-time methylation-specific PCR (qMSP). On the basis of the results of these techniques, six GBM cell lines were selected and subjected to bisulphite sequencing.Results:The MGMT protein was detected in all TMZ-resistant cell lines, whereas no MGMT protein could be detected in cell lines that were TMZ sensitive. The MS-MLPA results were able to predict TMZ sensitivity in 9 out of 16 cell lines (56%). The qMSP results matched well with TMZ sensitivity in 11 out of 12 (92%) glioma cell lines. In addition, methylation as detected by bisulphite sequencing seemed to be predictive of TMZ sensitivity in all six cell lines analysed (100%).Conclusion:The MGMT protein expression more than MGMT promoter methylation status predicts the response to TMZ in human tumour cell lines.

PURPOSE: Patients with a malignant glioma have a very poor prognosis. Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) protein is regularly upregulated in gliomas and might be a potential therapeutic target. The effects of three selective COX-2 inhibitors were studied on three human glioma cell lines.MATERIALS AND METHODS: The selective COX-2 inhibitors NS-398, Celecoxib and Meloxicam and three human glioma cell lines (D384, U251 and U87) were used. Cell growth was assessed by a proliferation assay, the interaction with radiation (0 - 6 Gy) was studied using the clonogenic assay and cell cycle distribution was determined by FACS (fluorescence-activated cell sorting) analysis.RESULTS: All COX-2 inhibitors reduced proliferation of the glioma cell lines irrespective of their COX-2 expression level. Incubation with 200 microM NS-398 24 h before radiation enhanced radiation-induced cell death of D384 cells and 750 microM Meloxicam resulted in radiosensitization of D384 and U87 cells. No radiosensitization was observed with COX-2 inhibitor administration after radiotherapy. Treatment of D384 with NS-398 (200 microM) or Celecoxib (50 microM) and U87 with NS-398 (200 microM) after radiation resulted even in radioprotection.CONCLUSIONS: Effectiveness of COX-2 inhibitors on cell proliferation and radio-enhancement was independent of COX-2 protein expression. The sequence of COX-2 inhibitor addition and irradiation is very important.