Brain tumour clinical trial title
Establishing multipotent stem cell lines from CNS tumours (Study ID: 32706)
Brain tumour type
Schwannoma,
Pituitary,
Brain metastases,
Neuroblastoma,
oligoastrocytoma,
Ependymoma,
Meningioma,
Medulloblastoma,
Glioma,
Glioblastoma,
Astrocytoma,
Anaplastic oligodendroglioma,
Anaplastic glioma,
Anaplastic astrocytoma,
Website
www.hra.nhs.uk/planning-and-improving-research/application-summaries/research-summaries/establishing-multipotent-stem-cell-lines-from-cns-tumours/
Description:
A striking feature of some central nervous system (CNS) tumours is the presence of cell types indicative of mixed neural/glial and mesodermal/mesenchymal (e.g. skeletal/smooth muscle, cartilage, bone) differentiation. These neuromesodermal (NM) tumours are distinct from germ cell-derived pluripotent teratocarcinomas and are classified as variations of a wide spectrum of brain cancers exhibiting diverse histopathological, molecular and age-onset profiles. They are thought to arise from stem cells resembling embryonic precursors which have the capacity to generate both neural and mesodermal lineages. NM tumours are highly aggressive, associated with poor prognosis and are often misdiagnosed using conventional immunohistochemical markers. Thus it is possible that these malignancies are more common than previously thought and understanding their biology is important for the development of improved therapeutic approaches. An attractive strategy for their treatment involves the isolation and culture of tumour-initiating cells which can be used as a target population for drug development. However, there are currently no such cell lines available for NM brain tumours. This is because the conventional route for brain cancer cell line derivation involves the use of culture conditions promoting neural stem cells rather than multipotent cell populations. In this study we propose to establish cell lines from NM CNS tumours by employing conditions we have found to favour precursor populations which occur naturally during early embryogenesis and can generate both neural and mesodermal cells, namely neuromesodermal progenitors or neural crest stem cells. We will also test whether markers of these embryonic populations can be utilised for the immunohistochemical detection of NM brain cancer stem cells in tumour samples. Such NM cancer stem cell lines will be a valuable resource for the scientific community and will serve as an ideal in vitro model for studying the links between embryonic and cancer stem cells.
Date added:
12th January 2019
Open/Closed:
Open
Trial ends:
April 2019
Provider
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Contact details