Circular RNAs in Medulloblastoma

Medulloblastoma is the most common childhood cancer in the brain and despite recent advances in therapeutic outcomes, survival rates are reaching a plateau. To improve survival outcomes, a greater understanding of the biology and progression of medulloblastoma is greatly needed. Recent research has found that newly identified RNA molecules, circular RNAs, play a role in an increasing number of cancers such as hepatocellular carcinoma, prostate and breast cancer. Researchers hypothesize that circular RNAs will also have a functional role in medulloblastoma and may even be used as biomarkers and therapeutic targets. The goals of this project are to identify the circular RNA present in medulloblastoma tumors of the sonic hedgehog (SHH) subgroup and compare it with that of normal cerebellum and to generate RNAseq data. This project will generate the largest open-access dataset of circular RNAs in SHH medulloblastoma. The Children’s Brain Tumor Network contributed to this project by providing tumor RNA samples from patients with SHH medulloblastomas.