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Brain’s Own Activity Can Fuel Growth of Deadly Brain Tumors, CIRM-Funded Study Finds

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Not all brain tumors are created equal—some are far more deadly than others. Among the most deadly is a type of tumor called high-grade glioma or HGG. Most distressingly, HGG’s are the leading cause of brain tumor death in both children and adults. And despite extraordinary progress in cancer research as a whole, survival rates for those diagnosed with an HGG have yet to improve.

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But recent research from Stanford University scientists could one day help move the needle—and give renewed hope to the patients and their families affected by this devastating disease.

The study, published today in the journal Cell, found that one key driver for HGG’s deadly diagnosis is that the tumor can be stimulated to grow by the brain’s own neural activity—specifically the nerve activity in the brain’s cerebral cortex.

Michelle Monje, senior author of the study that was funded in part by two grants from CIRM, was initially surprised by these results, as they run counter to how most types of tumors grow. As she explained in today’s press release:

“We don’t think about bile production promoting liver cancer growth, or breathing promoting the growth of lung cancer. But we’ve shown that brain function is driving these brain cancers.”
 


By analyzing tumor cells extracted from HGG patients, and engrafting it onto mouse models in the lab, the researchers were able to pinpoint how the brain’s own activity was driving tumor growth.

The culprit: a protein called neuroligin-3 that appeared to be calling the shots. There are four distinct types of HGGs that affect the brain in vastly different ways—and have vastly different molecular and genetic characteristics. Interestingly, says Monje, neuroligin-3 played the same role in all of them.


What was so disturbing to the research team, says Monje, is that neuroligin-3 is an essential protein for overall brain development. Specifically, it helps maintain healthy growth and repair of brain tissue over time. In order to grow, HGG tumors hijack this critical protein.

The research team came to this conclusion after a series of experiments that delved deep into the molecular mechanisms that guide both brain activity and brain tumor development. They first employed a technique called optogenetics, whereby scientists use genetic manipulation to insert light-sensitive proteins into the brain cells, or neurons, of interest. This allowed scientists to activate these neurons—or deactivate them—at the ‘flick of a switch.’

When applying this technique to the tumor-engrafted mouse models, the team could then see that tumors grew significantly better when the neurons were switched on. The next step was to narrow it down to why. Additional biochemical analyses and testing on the mouse models confirmed that neuroligin-3 was being hijacked by the tumor to spur growth.

And when they dug deeper into the connection between neuroligin-3 and cancer, they found something even more disturbing. A detailed look at the Cancer Genome Atlas (a large public database of the genetics of human cancers), they found that HGG patients with higher levels of neuroligin-3 in their brain had shorter survival rates than those with lower levels of the same protein.

These results, while highlighting the particularly nefarious nature of this class of brain tumors, also presents enormous opportunity for researchers. Specifically, Monje hopes her team and others can find a way to block or nullify the presence of neuroligin-3 in the regions surrounding the tumor, creating a kind of barrier that can keep the size of the tumor in check. 


‘STARS’ Help Scientists Control Genetic On/Off Switch

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All life on Earth relies, ultimately, on the delicate coordination of switches. During development, these switches turn genes on—or keep them off—at precise intervals, controlling the complex processes that guide the growth of the embryo, cell by cell, as it matures from a collection of stem cells into a living, breathing organism.

Scientists have found a new way to control genetic switches.

Scientists have found a new way to control genetic switches.

If you control the switch, you could theoretically control some of life’s most fundamental processes.

Which is precisely what scientists at Cornell University are attempting to do.

Reporting in today’s issue of Nature Chemical Biology, synthetic biologists have developed a new method of directing these switches—a feat that could revolutionize the field of genetic engineering.

At the heart of the team’s discovery is a tiny molecule called RNA. A more simplified version of its cousin, DNA, RNA normally serves as a liaison—translating the genetic information housed in DNA into the proteins that together make up each and every cell in the body.

In nature, RNA does not have the ability to ‘turn on’ a gene at will. So the Cornell team, led by Julius Lucks, made a new kind of RNA that did.

They engineered a new type of RNA that they are calling Small Transcription Activating RNAs, or STARS, that can serve as a kind of artificial switch. In laboratory experiments, Lucks and his team showed that they could control how and when a gene was switched on by physically placing the STARS system in front of it. As Lucks explained in a news release:

“RNA is like a molecular puzzle, a crazy Rubik’s cube that has to be unlocked in order to do different things. We’ve figured out how to design another RNA that unlocks part of that puzzle. The STAR is the key to that lock.”

RNA is an attractive molecule to manipulate because it is so simple, says Lucks, much simpler than proteins. Many efforts aimed at protein manipulation have failed, due to the sheer complexity of these molecules. But by downshifting into the simpler, more manageable RNA molecules, Lucks argues that greater strides can be made in the field of synthetic biology and genetic engineering.

“This is going to open up a whole set of possibilities for us, because RNA molecules make decisions and compute information really well, and they detect things really well,” said Lucks.

In the future, Lucks envisions a system based solely on RNA that has the capability to manipulate genetic switches to better understand fundamental processes that guide the healthy development of a cell—and provide clues to what happens when those processes go awry.

CIRM-Funded Scientists Test Recipe for Building New Muscles

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When muscles get damaged due to disease or injury, the body activates its reserves—muscle stem cells that head to the injury site and mature into fully functioning muscle cells. But when the reserves are all used up, things get tricky.

Scientists at Sanford-Burnham may have uncovered the key to muscle repair.

Scientists at Sanford-Burnham may have uncovered the key to muscle repair.

This is especially the case for people living with muscle diseases, such as muscular dystrophy, in which the muscle degrades at a far faster rate than average and the body’s reserve stem cell supply becomes exhausted. With no more supply from which to draw new muscle cells, the muscles degrade further, resulting in the disease’s debilitating symptoms, such as progressive difficulty walking, running or speaking.

So, scientists have long tried to find a way to replenish the dwindling supply of muscle stem cells (called ‘satellite cells’), thus slowing—or even halting—muscle decay.

And now, researchers at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute have found a way to tweak the normal cycle, and boost the production of muscle cells even when supplies appear to be diminished. These findings, reported in the latest issue of Nature Medicine, offer an alternative treatment for the millions of people suffering not only from muscular dystrophy, but also other diseases that result in muscle decay—such as some forms of cancer and age-related diseases.

In this study, Sanford-Burnham researchers found that introducing a particular protein, called a STAT3 inhibitor, into the cycle of muscle-cell regeneration could boost the production of muscle cells—even after multiple rounds of repair that would otherwise render regeneration virtually impossible.

The STAT3 inhibitor, as its name suggests, works by ‘inhibiting,’ or effectively neutralizing, another protein called STAT3. Normally, STAT3 gets switched on in response to muscle injury, setting in motion a series of steps that replenishes muscle cells.

In experiments first in animal models of muscular dystrophy—and next in human cells in a petri dish—the team decided to modify how STAT3 functions. Instead of keeping STAT3 active, as would normally occur, the team introduced the STAT3 inhibitor at specific times during the muscle regeneration process. And in so doing, noticed a significant boost in muscle cell production. As Dr. Alessandra Sacco, the study’s senior author, stated in a news release:

“We’ve discovered that by timing the inhibition of STAT3—like an ‘on/off’ light switch—we can transiently expand the satellite cell population followed by their differentiation into mature cells.”

This approach to spurring muscle regeneration, which was funded in part by a CIRM training grant, is not only innovative, but offers new hope to a disease for which treatments have offered little. As Dr. Vittorio Sartorelli, deputy scientific director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), stated:

“Currently, there is no cure to stop or reverse any form of muscle-wasting disorders—only medication and therapy that can slow the process. A treatment approach consisting of cyclic bursts of STAT3 inhibitors could potentially restore muscle mass and function in patients, and this would be a very significant breakthrough.”

Sacco and her colleagues are encouraged by these results, and plan to explore their findings in greater detail—hopefully moving towards clinical trials:

“Our next step is to see how long we can extend the cycling pattern, and test some of the STAT3 inhibitors currently in clinical trials for other indications such as cancer, as this could accelerate testing in humans.”