Delineating Pediatric Glioma Progression Using Single-nuclei Sequencing

Low-grade gliomas are the most prevalent brain cancer among children. While patients with this type of cancer respond well to surgery, the majority experience recurrence after initial removal and require additional rounds of treatment. Deeper study is needed to better steer and prioritize post-removal treatment protocol. For the past year, researchers have been studying the immune microenvironment of over 1100 samples of pediatric cancers including those provided by the Children’s Brain Tumor Network. The overall aim of this proposal is to understand changes in malignant and non-malignant compartments of pediatric low-grade gliomas during the course of the disease in an effort to guide treatment. The goals of this project are to determine changes in tumors during the course of tumor progression and to investigate contribution and evolution of tumour microenvironment in the low-grade glioma. The Children’s Brain Tumor Network will be contributing to this project by providing rare, high quality low grade glioma samples. By studying cancer and non-cancerous cell types that populate brain tumours upon recurrence, researchers expect to identify novel therapy targets and to develop combination therapy protocols informed by this work.