Truncated BRPF1 Cooperates with Smoothened to Promote Adult Shh Medulloblastoma.

The transition of neural progenitors to differentiated postmitotic neurons is mainly considered irreversible in physiological conditions. In the present work, we show that Shh pathway activation through SmoM2 expression promotes postmitotic neurons dedifferentiation, re-entering in the cell cycle and originating medulloblastoma in vivo. Notably, human adult patients present inactivating mutations of the chromatin reader BRPF1 that are associated with SMO mutations and absent in pediatric and adolescent patients. Here, we found that truncated BRPF1 protein, as found in human adult patients, is able to induce medulloblastoma in adult mice upon SmoM2 activation. Indeed, postmitotic neurons re-entered the cell cycle and proliferated as a result of chromatin remodeling of neurons by BRPF1. Our model of brain cancer explains the onset of a subset of human medulloblastoma in adult individuals where granule neuron progenitors are no longer present. • SmoM2 overexpression promotes cerebellar granule neurons dedifferentiation in vivo • SmoM2 and mutant BRPF1 cooperation in vivo mimics human adult SHH MBs • Granule neurons are putative cells of origin of adult SHH MBs • Truncated BRPF1 increases the accessibility of a subset of super-enhancers Medulloblastoma is a brain tumor affecting the cerebellum of infants and adults. Aiello et al. establish a mouse model for adult onset, which allows investigation of the pathogenesis of the disease and identifies neurons as putative cells of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]