title: Fusion gene addiction: can tumours be forced to give up the habit?
abstract: Fusion of genes in tumours can have oncogenic roles in reprogramming cells through overexpression of oncogenes or the production of novel fusion proteins. A fundamental question in cancer biology is what genetic events are critical for initiation and whether these are also required for cancer progression. In recent work published in The Journal of Pathology, dependency on a fusion protein was addressed using a model of alveolar rhabdomyosarcomas - a sarcoma subtype with frequent fusion of PAX3 and FOXO1 genes that is associated with poor outcome. PAX3-FOXO1 encodes a potent transcription factor that together with MYCN alters the transcriptional landscape of cells. Building on previous work, an inducible model in human myoblast cells was used to show that PAX3-FOXO1 and MYCN can initiate rhabdomyosarcoma development but, contrary to current thinking, tumour recurrences occasionally arose independent of the fusion protein. Further work needs to identify the molecular nature of this independence and assess any relevance in human tumours. Such functional approaches are required together with computational modeling of molecular data to unravel spatial and temporal dependencies on specific genetic events. This may support molecular prognostic markers and therapeutic targets. Copyright © 2017 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Sarcoma Molecular Pathology Team, Divisions of Molecular Pathology and Cancer Therapeutics, Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK.
authors.forename: Joanna L
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-9556-3628
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Selfe
authors.affiliation: Sarcoma Molecular Pathology Team, Divisions of Molecular Pathology and Cancer Therapeutics, Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK.
authors.forename: Janet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shipley
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D000071161:Forkhead Box Protein O1 / Q000235:genetics; D050939:Gene Fusion; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000235:genetics; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*; D015514:Oncogene Proteins, Fusion / Q000235:genetics*; D000072041:PAX3 Transcription Factor / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: C085126:FOXO1 protein, human; D000071161:Forkhead Box Protein O1; C467200:Foxo1 protein, mouse; D015514:Oncogene Proteins, Fusion; D000072041:PAX3 Transcription Factor; C489409:PAX3 protein, human; C068686:Pax3 protein, mouse
keywords: MYCN; PAX3-FOXO1; myoblast; recurrence; rhabdomyosarcoma