Circulating microRNA biomarkers for metastatic disease in neuroblastoma patients
In this study, the circulating miRNome from diagnostic neuroblastoma serum was assessed for identification of noninvasive biomarkers with potential in monitoring metastatic disease. After determining the circulating neuroblastoma miRNome, 743 miRNAs were screened in 2 independent cohorts of 131 and 54 patients. Evaluation of serum miRNA variance in a model testing for tumor stage, MYCN status, age at diagnosis, and overall survival revealed tumor stage as the most significant factor impacting miRNA abundance in neuroblastoma serum. Differential abundance analysis between patients with metastatic and localized disease revealed 9 miRNAs strongly associated with metastatic stage 4 disease in b…
Circulating microRNA biomarkers for metastatic disease in neuroblastoma patients
AbstractIn this study, the circulating miRNome from diagnostic neuroblastoma serum was assessed for identification of non-invasive biomarkers with potential in monitoring metastatic disease. After determining the circulating neuroblastoma miRNome, 743 miRNAs were screened in two independent cohorts of 131 and 54 patients. Evaluation of serum miRNA variance in a model testing for tumor stage, MYCN status, age at diagnosis and overall survival, revealed tumor stage as the most significant factor impacting miRNA abundance in neuroblastoma serum. Differential expression analysis between patients with metastatic and localized disease revealed 9 miRNAs strongly associated with metastatic stage 4 …
Focal DNA Copy Number Changes in Neuroblastoma Target MYCN Regulated Genes
Neuroblastoma is an embryonic tumor arising from immature sympathetic nervous system cells. Recurrent genomic alterations include MYCN and ALK amplification as well as recurrent patterns of gains and losses of whole or large partial chromosome segments. A recent whole genome sequencing effort yielded no frequently recurring mutations in genes other than those affecting ALK. However, the study further stresses the importance of DNA copy number alterations in this disease, in particular for genes implicated in neuritogenesis. Here we provide additional evidence for the importance of focal DNA copy number gains and losses, which are predominantly observed in MYCN amplified tumors. A focal 5 kb…
EV-TRACK: transparent reporting and centralizing knowledge in extracellular vesicle research
We argue that the field of extracellular vesicle (EV) biology needs more transparent reporting to facilitate interpretation and replication of experiments. To achieve this, we describe EV-TRACK, a crowdsourcing knowledgebase (http://evtrack.org) that centralizes EV biology and methodology with the goal of stimulating authors, reviewers, editors and funders to put experimental guidelines into practice.