“Multiomic integration reveals tumoral heterogeneity of lipid dependence within lethal Group 3 medulloblastoma.”

The paper analyzes hundreds of samples the using the Illumina EPIC methylation array  to analyze and compare DNA methylation in models owned by brain tumor mouse model development experts from around the world. This major project took five years from sample collection, and one of the lead authors is Tuyu Zheng (currently a postdoctoral researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital), a former doctoral student whom Professor Kawauchi supervised when he was a PI in Germany. Lab members Wang (graduate student), Shiraishi (PhD graduate) and Kawauchi (PI) are coauthors. Read it here.

Prof. Kawauchi and graduate student Wang co-authored this article at the request of our friend Michael Goldstein at Duke University to share the somatic mutation-based mouse model generation techniques we utilize in medulloblastoma research.

Read it here.

The research proposal focused on Grp4 medulloblastoma, a tumor for which knowledge of progression mechanisms is limited. We aim to analyze the interactions between tumor cells and neurons by utilizing a newly developed N1-SRC-induced cancer model and patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models. Given that Grp4 medulloblastoma exhibits a neural gene signature, strong interaction between cancer and neuronal cells is suspected.

Graduate student Xiao demonstrated that SHTN1 promotes migration of human glioblastoma cells using brain organoids. These organoids were established in collaboration with Prof. Yoshitsugu Aoki at NCNP (Xiao et al., in preparation). 

The research was featured in Yahoo! News JP.