Interactions Between Astrocytes and Tumor Cells Are Critical for Medulloblastoma Growth

Medulloblastoma (MB) is the most common malignant brain tumor in children and despite aggressive tumor treatment, prognosis for many patients is still poor. Improved strategies to treat MB can only come from deeper understandings of how this tumor type originates and grows. Recent research at Fox Chase Cancer Center has been focused on hedgehog pathway associated MB. Researchers have previously demonstrated through animal models that astrocytes, a subtype of central nervous system cells found in the MB tumor microenvironment, play a critical role in MB progression. They have also found that MB cells activated astrocytes in their tumor microenvironment, stimulating them to secrete multiple growth factors for tumor growth. Based on this, researchers hypothesize that interactions between astrocytes and tumor cells are necessary for MB growth, making this interaction a possible target for new therapies. Researchers are carrying out this research on mice animal models and will use human samples provided by the Children’s Brain Tumor Network to develop new models and to validate their results. The findings from this project will shed light on the important functions of tumor microenvironment in MB growth.