EPCO-36. INVESTIGATING THE BAIAP2-CDC42 INTERACTION IN MEDULLOBLASTOMA

Abstract

Abstract Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor found in children. The standard of care is surgical removal, radiation, and chemotherapy. Despite advancements in treatment, there is still no significant improvement of survival rates using chemotherapy compared to no treatment. This indicates novel, more effective treatment options are necessary. In addition, there is a worst mortality rate when medulloblastoma is metastasized outside the central nervous system. Recent studies have identified that medulloblastoma tumors can disseminate via the bloodstream and cerebral spinal fluid. However, not much is known about the properties of metastasis and invasion in medulloblastoma. We set out to identify potential key regulators for the pathophysiology of medulloblastoma. I mined and analyzed Medulloblastoma patient tumor data along with data obtained from a 10X Genomics Chromium single-cell RNA sequencing experiment performed in the laboratory from a Tg (Neurod-Smoothened*A1) mouse to investigate cellular heterogeneity and identify potential regulators in the metastasis and invasion of medulloblastoma. We identified BAIAP2 and CDC42 to be differentially expressed in our data. Previous studies show that these genes are implicated in oncogenic properties, such as motility, filopodia, and invasion. We hypothesize that distinct cell populations within medulloblastoma should show different expressions of BAIAP2 and CDC42 and that there will be different expressions when compared to non-tumor brain cells. We determined that BAIAP2 and CDC42 have higher expression in medulloblastoma tumors compared to the control. Interestingly, BAIAP2 is enriched in the cell population for microtubule depolymerization. Moreover, we show the role BAIAP2 and CDC42 have in the invasion and metastasis of medulloblastoma. This study is important because BAIAP2 and CDC42 have yet to be characterized in medulloblastoma. We suggest that BAIAP2 and CDC42 have a role in the metastasis and invasion of medulloblastoma indicating it could be a possible target for future studies.