Cross-Species Omics Integration to Identify Oncogenic Events in Pediatric Brain Tumors

A common method for the investigation of cancers is the use of preclinical models. Mice are often used to study the development and progression of tumors as well as their responses to novel treatments. The DNA and RNA of these mice and their tumors can be compared to data collected from pediatric brain cancer patients. Researchers plan to use whole genome sequencing and RNAseq data of pediatric brain cancer tissues and perform cross-species comparisons with previously collected mouse data. This sequencing data allows researchers to compare each gene across species. Mouse RNA-seq data will be aligned to the human dataset, and the expression changes will be traced back to genomic mutations. The expression changes will be further validated by comparisons to further data collected from mouse models. The main goal of this work is to identify genetic events that lead to the development of cancer across species. This knowledge will allow for more accurate animal models. Researchers propose to use brain cancer genome data from the Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas, to perform cross-species comparison.