Abstract 468: Evaluation of microRNA inhibition in medulloblastoma

Abstract

Abstract Medulloblastoma is the most common pediatric malignant brain tumor. The current treatment plan consists of a combination of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy which results in an 80% five year survival rate. However, the survival rate does not take into account the developmental delays and learning disabilities inherited as a result of the aggressive treatment plan on a developing brain. As such the development of new treatment options is needed. While many protein targets are currently being explored for therapeutic intervention, the role of non-coding RNAs is of increasing interest. Specifically microRNA profiling in medulloblastoma has been performed by others to highlight expression profiles which can be mapped to the disease state and also to potentially identify associated protein targets. Moreover, it is particularly intriguing that microRNAs themselves may be directly targeted as therapeutic points of intervention. With this in mind, our lab is currently investigating methods for directly targeting microRNAs in medulloblastoma and we have recently validated several upregulated miRNAs for further investigation. Specifically, we evaluated the expression profile eighteen selected miRNAs in DAOY and D341 cell lines. Our results indicate that four miRNAs (miR-196a, miR-183, miR-96, and miR-182) are statistically overexpressed in both cell lines. Results of these findings and our initial efforts to target these selected miRNAs will be described. Citation Format: Alexander Vavra, Sydney Stoops, Jonathan White. Evaluation of microRNA inhibition in medulloblastoma [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 468. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-468