Joanna Triscott, Cathy Lee, Colleen Foster, Branavan Manoranjan, Mary Rose Pambid, Rachel Berns, Abbas Fotovati, Chitra Venugopal, Katrina O'Halloran, Aru Narendran, Cynthia Hawkins, Vijay Ramaswamy, Eric Bouffet, Michael D Taylor, Ash Singhal, Juliette Hukin, Rod Rassekh, Stephen Yip, Paul Northcott, Sheila K Singh, Christopher Dunham, Sandra E Dunn
Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor in children. This disease is heterogeneous and is composed of four subtypes of medulloblastoma [WNT, Sonic Hedgehog (SHH), Group 3, and Group 4]. An immediate goal is to identify novel molecular targets for the most aggressive forms of medulloblastoma. Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) is an oncogenic kinase that controls cell cycle and proliferation, making it a strong candidate for medulloblastoma treatment. In this study, pediatric medulloblastomas were subtyped in two patient cohorts (discovery cohort, n = 63 patients; validation cohort, n = 57 patients) using NanoString nCounter analysis and PLK1 mRNA was assessed...
November 15, 2013: Cancer Research