Mutational profile of glioblastoma primary cultures

Abstract

Gliobastomas are the most frequent and malignant brain neoplasia among the central nervous system tumors. These are incurable neoplasias, with mean survival of 13 months, and less than 2% of the patients reach 5 years post treatment. The low success in the treatment of these tumors are, in part, due to the little understanding of their molecular bases. Moreover, several in vitro studies are performed in immortalized cells, which frequently are not accurate in the representation of the primary tumors, since they had molecular alterations during the immortalization process. Therefore, the objective of this project is the molecular characterization of point mutations present in oncogenesis-related genes (through next generation sequencing - Ion Torrent) in the primary cells of glioblastoma obtained on Barretos Cancer Hospital. This data will be integrated with the chromosomal profile of tumors. These results will be further compared to the alterations found in primary tumors from the same patients. Consequently, we aim to select the primary cultures that harbour the same molecular profile of the primary tumors, which will be further used as in vitro models for assessing the biological function of genes associated with gliomas and to perform the screening of novel drugs in order to identify more effective and specific agents for glioblastomas. Additionally, the establishment of a mutation panel specific of glioblastoma will be of major importance for a future implementation in a routine of brain tumors diagnosis. (AU)