Glioma-initiating cells (GICs), also called glioma stem cells, are responsible for tumor initiation, relapse, and therapeutic resistance. Here, we show that TGF-β inhibitors, currently under clinical development, target the GIC compartment in human glioblastoma (GBM) patients. Using patient-derived specimens, we have determined the gene responses to TGF-β inhibition, which include inhibitors of DNA-binding protein (Id)-1 and -3 transcription factors. We have identified a cell population enriched for GICs that expresses high levels of CD44 and Id1 and tend to be located in a perivascular niche. The inhibition of the TGF-β pathway decreases the CD44(high)/Id1(high) GIC population through the repression of Id1 and Id3 levels, therefore inhibiting the capacity of cells to initiate tumors. High CD44 and Id1 levels confer poor prognosis in GBM patients.

Glioma-initiating cells (GICs) are responsible for the initiation and recurrence of gliomas. Here, we identify a molecular mechanism that regulates the self-renewal capacity of patient-derived GICs. We show that TGF-beta and LIF induce the self-renewal capacity and prevent the differentiation of GICs. TGF-beta induces the self-renewal capacity of GICs, but not of normal human neuroprogenitors, through the Smad-dependent induction of LIF and the subsequent activation of the JAK-STAT pathway. The effect of TGF-beta and LIF on GICs promotes oncogenesis in vivo. Some human gliomas express high levels of LIF that correlate with high expression of TGF-beta2 and neuroprogenitor cell markers. Our results show that TGF-beta and LIF have an essential role in the regulation of GICs in human glioblastoma.

Gliomas are the most common primary tumours affecting the adult central nervous system and respond poorly to standard therapy. Myc is causally implicated in most human tumours and the majority of glioblastomas have elevated Myc levels. Using the Myc dominant negative Omomyc, we previously showed that Myc inhibition is a promising strategy for cancer therapy. Here, we preclinically validate Myc inhibition as a therapeutic strategy in mouse and human glioma, using a mouse model of spontaneous multifocal invasive astrocytoma and its derived neuroprogenitors, human glioblastoma cell lines, and patient-derived tumours both in vitro and in orthotopic xenografts. Across all these experimental models we find that Myc inhibition reduces proliferation, increases apoptosis and remarkably, elicits the formation of multinucleated cells that then arrest or die by mitotic catastrophe, revealing a new role for Myc in the proficient division of glioma cells.

The impaired mitochondrial function hypothesis in schizophrenia is based on evidence of altered brain metabolism, morphology, biochemistry and gene expression. Mitochondria have their own genome, which is needed to synthesize some of the subunits of the respiratory chain enzymes. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is maternally inherited and we observed an excess of maternal transmission of schizophrenia in a set of parent -offspring affected pairs. We therefore hypothesized that mutations in the mtDNA may contribute to the complex genetic basis of schizophrenia. The entire mtDNA of six schizophrenic patients with an apparent maternal transmission of the disease was sequenced and compared to the reference sequence. We have identified 50 variants and among these six have not been previously reported. Three of them were missense variants: MTCO2 7750C4A, MTATP6 8857G4A and MTND4 12096T4A. These were maternally inherited because they were also present in the mtDNA of their respective schizophrenic mothers and none of them were found in 95 control individuals. The MTND4 12096T4A (Leu446His) is a heteroplasmic variant present in five of the six mother -offspring patient pairs that triggers a nonconservative substitution in the ND4 subunit of complex I. Sequence alignment of 110 ND4 peptides from all eukaryotic kingdoms shows that only hydrophobic amino acids are found in this position. Moreover, leucine was conserved or substituted by an isoleucine in all mammalian species. This indicates that the presence of histidine could affect complex I activity in patients with schizophrenia.