https:\/\/d.newswise.com\/articles\/serotonin-uptake-regulates-ependymoma-tumor-growth<\/a><\/p>\n“…Do neurons play a role in brain tumor growth and development? Scientists at St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine have evidence showing that, for childhood ependymomas<\/strong><\/span>, they do. There are no targeted therapies available to treat ependymoma due in large part to a lack of understanding of the tumor microenvironment. By leveraging a recently developed murine model, scientists explored the interaction between ependymoma cells and surrounding neurons. They found that hyperactivation of a specific subset of neurons has different effects on tumor cell proliferation. Increased serotonin production in the tumor microenvironment drives tumor growth<\/strong><\/span>. The findings were published today in\u00a0Nature<\/em>.”<\/p>\n“…This is notably relevant for difficult to treat cancers, such as ependymoma, the third most common type of brain tumor in children<\/strong><\/span>. The present study offers fundamental insights into how ependymoma regulation is impacted by the surrounding neuronal environment. Ependymoma is associated with poor survival and neurocognitive outcomes due to a lack of available targeted therapies<\/strong><\/span>. A newly developed mouse model successfully mimics an aggressive form of the cancer caused by a gene fusion between\u00a0ZFTA<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0RELA<\/em>, which creates a rogue transcription factor that drives tumor growth. The model has allowed researchers, including Mack, to finally gain insight into the biology of the disease, the lack of which has stymied drug discovery efforts from the outset.”<\/p>\n“…The researchers found that in ependymoma, pathways involved in neuronal function and neurotransmission were enriched, implying not just a tumor neuronal interaction but a dependency<\/strong><\/span>. Further analysis of this link steered them towards serotonergic neurons, those responsible for producing the neurotransmitter serotonin<\/strong><\/span>. Enrichment of serotonin transporters within tumor cells implied that the tumor cells were foraging serotonin from their environment<\/strong><\/span>, but it was not clear why. \u201cWe found that serotonin <\/strong><\/span>added to histone proteins is<\/strong><\/span> a modification critical for ependymoma tumor growth<\/strong><\/span>,\u201d added first author Hsiao-Chi Chen, Baylor College of Medicine.”<\/p>\n“…The researchers also demonstrated that the tumor cells can \u201ctalk back\u201d to the neurons. \u201cWe\u2019ve dissected some of the gene regulatory mechanisms in these tumors and seen how tumor cells secrete factors that modulate normal activity,\u201d Mack said. \u201cYou lose control of factors you would normally release to inhibit hyperactivity. It\u2019s a vicious loop where these cells are communicating with each other to drive tumor cell proliferation<\/strong><\/span>.\u201d Identifying such a fundamental link between tumor neuronal communication and tumor proliferation may impact cancers beyond ependymoma. \u201cFinding that histone serotonylation regulates tumorigenesis<\/span> and that it\u2019s being driven by neurons in the microenvironment is remarkable<\/strong><\/span>,\u201d said Mack. \u201cIt could apply to other tumor types too<\/strong><\/span>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Evil serotonin (5-HT) strikes again. This time by being exposed as a potent tumor growth promoter. Cortisol…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[192,138,55,2050,47,2049,379],"class_list":["post-2664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-5-ht","tag-brain","tag-cancer","tag-histone","tag-serotonin","tag-serotonylation","tag-tumor","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2664"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2666,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2664\/revisions\/2666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}