Unraveling metabolic dependencies in childhood supratentorial ependymomas.
Childhood ependymomas are devastating tumors with limited treatment options. A subset of these tumors occur in the upper portion of the brain. About 70% of these tumors bear an abnormal protein termed C11orf95-RELA. Our goal is to determine how this abnormal protein causes cancer and use this knowledge to treat these deadly tumors. We have discovered that ependymoma tumor cells with the C11orf95-RELA protein are addicted to the amino acid glutamine. We propose to understand why these tumor cells are addicted to glutamine and develop treatments to suppress this addiction and kill these ependymoma tumor cells.
Project Goals:
Our goals are:
(1) To understand why childhood ependymoma tumor cells with the C11orf95-RELA protein are addicted to glutamine and how they use glutamine to grow and divide.
(2) We will use this knowledge to devise new treatments that block this glutamine addiction to kill these ependymoma tumor cells.
Project Update 2024:
We are working on an aggressive brain tumor called supratentorial ependymoma. These tumors are driven by an abnormal protein called ZFTARELA. We have found that this protein results in tumor cells eating up large quantities of the amino acid glutamine. We have found that glutamine supports the cells to stay alive and divide by balancing the redox state of tumor cells. We will use this knowledge to stop cells from using glutamine and thereby kill these aggressive cancer cells.
