Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Emerging Role Of Ng2 In Pediatric Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma., Sridevi Yadavilli, Joseph Scafidi, Oren J. Becher, Amanda M. Saratsis, Rebecca L. Hiner, Madhuri Kambhampati, Santi Mariarita, Tobey J. Macdonald, Kari-Elise Codispoti, Suresh N. Magge, Jyoti K. Jaiswal, Roger J. Packer, Javad Nazarian

Neurology Faculty Publications

Diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPGs) have a dismal prognosis and are poorly understood brain cancers. Receptor tyrosine kinases stabilized by neuron-glial antigen 2 (NG2) protein are known to induce gliomagenesis. Here, we investigated NG2 expression in a cohort of DIPG specimens (n= 50). We demonstrate NG2 expression in the majority of DIPG specimens tested and determine that tumors harboring histone 3.3 mutation express the highest NG2 levels. We further demonstrate that microRNA 129-2 (miR129-2) is downregulated and hypermethylated in human DIPGs, resulting in the increased expression of NG2. Treatment with 5-Azacytidine, a methyltransferase inhibitor, results in NG2 downregulation in DIPG …