In Memoriam: Sharon B. Murphy, MD (1943–2023)

Published On: December 15, 2023
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We share with great sadness that the inaugural director of the Greehey Children's Cancer Research Institute has passed.  Below is the obituary originally published in the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology on November 18, 2023.  She will always be remembered by those of us who were fortunate enough to work with her. It is an [...] Read more

Nucleic Acids Research: The protein phosphatase EYA4 promotes homologous recombination (HR) through dephosphorylation of tyrosine 315 on RAD51 (Sung Lab)

Published On: December 14, 2023
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Bárbara de la Peña Avalos, Nicolas Paquet, Romain Tropée, Yan Coulombe, Hannah Palacios, Justin W Leung, Jean-Yves Masson, Pascal H G Duijf, Eloïse Dray Abstract Efficient DNA repair and limitation of genome rearrangements rely on crosstalk between different DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair pathways and their synchronization with the cell cycle. The selection, timing, and efficacy of DSB repair pathways are influenced by post-translational modifications of histones and [...] Read more

Molecular Cell: SRSF2 Plays an Unexpected Role as Reader of m5C on mRNA, Linking Epitranscriptomics to Cancer (Gupta)

Published On: December 7, 2023
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Hai-Li Ma 1 14, Martin Bizet 1 14, Christelle Soares Da Costa 1 14, Frédéric Murisier 1, Eric James de Bony 1 8, Meng-Ke Wang 2, Akihide Yoshimi 3 9, Kuan-Ting Lin 7, Kristin M. Riching 4, Xing Wang 2, John I. Beckman 5, Shailee Arya 5, Nathalie Droin 6, Emilie Calonne 1, Bouchra Hassabi 1, Qing-Yang Zhang 2 10, Ang Li 2 11, Pascale Putmans 1, Lionel Malbec 1, Céline Hubert 1…François Fuks 1 15 Highlights SRSF2 preferentially binds m5C-marked mRNA, whereas SRSF2P95H mutant impairs binding NSUN2 depletion reduces mRNA m5C levels and alters SRSF2 RNA binding and splicing NSUN2 loss and SRSF2P95H alter SRSF2 binding to key leukemia-related transcripts In leukemia patients, low NSUN2 levels and SRSF2P95H mutation predict poor outcomes. Summary A common mRNA [...] Read more

IScience: Comprehensive Characterization of Patient-Derived Xenograft Models of Pediatric Leukemia (Houghton, Grimes, Lai, Chen, Zheng, Kurmasheva, & Tomlinson Labs)

Published On: December 6, 2023
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Anna Rogojina 1 12, Laura,  J. Klesse 2 3 4 12, Erin Butler 2 3 4 12, Jiwoong Kim 5, He Zhang 5, Xue Xiao 5, Lei Guo 5, Qinbo Zhou 5, Taylor Hartshorne 2, Dawn Garcia 1, Korri Weldon 1, Trevor Holland 1, Abhik Bandyopadhyay 1, Luz Perez Prado 1, Shidan Wang 5, Donghan [...] Read more

Cold Spring Harbor, Spatial-Live: A lightweight and versatile tool for single cell spatial-omics data visualization (Chen, Zheng, Lai)

Published On: December 5, 2023
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Zhenqing Ye, Zhao Lai, Siyuan Zheng, Yidong Chen Abstract Single-cell spatial-omics data visualization plays a pivotal role in unraveling the intricate spatial organization and heterogeneity of cellular systems. Although various software tools and packages have been developed for this purpose, challenges persist in terms of user-friendly accessibility, data integration, and interactivity. In this study, we introduce Spatial-Live, a lightweight and versatile viewer tool designed [...] Read more

Kids Cancer CEO (Community Engagement & Outreach) : Differences between adult and pediatric cancers – Molecular Oncology Series

Published On: December 4, 2023
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Molecular Oncology Series Patient response to cancer malignancies differs significantly from one patient to the next. These differences can be attributed to the patient’s case-by-case scenario in terms of co-morbidities, location of the tumor, and what stage the cancer is in when it is discovered, as a few examples. Adding to these differences, cancers themselves [...] Read more

Molecular and Cellular Biology: A SNAI2/CTCF Interaction is Required for NOTCH1 Expression in Rhabdomyosarcoma (Ignatius Lab)

Published On: December 1, 2023
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Prethish Sreenivas,Long Wang,Meng Wang,Anil Challa,Paulomi Modi,Nicole Rae Hensch,Berkley Gryder,Hsien-Chao Chou,Xiang R. Zhao,Benjamin Sunkel,Rodrigo Moreno-Campos,Javed Khan,Benjamin Z. Stanton & Myron S. Ignatius Abstract Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is a pediatric malignancy of the muscle with characteristics of cells blocked in differentiation. NOTCH1 is an oncogene promoting self-renewal and blocking differentiation in the fusion negative-RMS sub-type. However, how NOTCH1 [...] Read more

Nucleic Acids Research: TATDN2 resolution of R-loops is required for survival of BRCA1-mutant cancer cells (Sung, Gupta, Pertsemlidis, Bishop, et al)

Published On: November 29, 2023
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Aruna S Jaiswal, Arijit Dutta, Gayathri Srinivasan, Yaxia Yuan, Daohong Zhou, Montaser Shaheen, Doraid T Sadideen, Austin Kirby, Elizabeth A Williamson, Yogesh K Gupta, Shaun K Olsen, Mingjiang Xu, Eva Loranc, Pramiti Mukhopadhyay, Alexander Pertsemlidis, Alexander J R Bishop, Patrick Sung, Jac A Nickoloff, Robert Hromas BRCA1-deficient cells have increased IRE1 RNase, which degrades multiple microRNAs. Reconstituting expression of one of these, miR-4638–5p, resulted in synthetic lethality in BRCA1-deficient cancer cells. We found that miR-4638-5p represses expression of [...] Read more

Nature Communications: Genomic profiling of subcutaneous patient-derived xenografts reveals immune constraints on tumor evolution in childhood solid cancer (Zheng, Grimes, Lai, Chen, Wang, Tomlinson, Houghton, & Kurmasheva Labs)

Published On: November 27, 2023
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Funan He, Abhik M. Bandyopadhyay, Laura J. Klesse, Anna Rogojina, Sang H. Chun, Erin Butler, Taylor Hartshorne, Trevor Holland, Dawn Garcia, Korri Weldon, Luz-Nereida Perez Prado, Anne-Marie Langevin, Allison C. Grimes, Aaron Sugalski, Shafqat Shah, Chatchawin Assanasen, Zhao Lai, Yi Zou, Dias Kurmashev, Lin Xu, Yang Xie, Yidong Chen, Xiaojing Wang, Gail E. Tomlinson, Stephen [...] Read more

OpenAccessGovernment.org: Current and future therapy for BRAF-mutant pediatric glioma

Published On: November 20, 2023
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Professor Peter J. Houghton from the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute discusses new approaches to pediatric cancer treatment, specifically for BRAF-mutant pediatric glioma. Low-grade glioma (LGG) is the most frequently diagnosed brain tumor in children, and although five and ten-year survival is quite high, this does not reveal the toxicity of current therapies. Conventional treatment includes intensive chemo-radiation [...] Read more