BACKGROUND Cultured brain tumors can form neurospheres harboring tumorigenic cells with self renewal and differentiation capacities. Renewable neurosphere formation has clinical predictive value in adult malignant gliomas, yet its prognostic role for pediatric brain tumors is unknown. METHODS Established neurosphere conditions were used for culturing samples from glial, embryonal and mixed gl...

Rhabdoid tumors (RT) are highly aggressive and vastly unresponsive embryonal tumors. They are the most common malignant CNS tumors in infants below 6 months of age. Medulloblastomas (MB) are embryonal tumors that arise in the cerebellum and are the most frequent pediatric malignant brain tumors. Despite the advances in recent years, especially for the most favorable molecular subtypes of MB, th...

Embryonal central nervous system (CNS) tumors, which comprise medulloblastoma, are the most common malignant brain tumors in children. The role of the growth factor scatter factor/hepatocyte growth factor (SF/HGF) and its tyrosine kinase receptor c-Met in these tumors has been until now completely unknown. In the present study, we show that human embryonal CNS tumor cell lines and surgical tumo...

Testicular tumors are both increasing in frequency and disproportionately occur in young men; furthermore, different forms of neoplasm require different treatments. These considerations make the accurate diagnosis of testicular tumors especially important. Many of the critical distinctions involve the differentiation of seminoma from one or more potential mimics because seminoma is not only the...

BACKGROUND Genitourinary embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma is rarely reported in China. This retrospective analysis aimed to characterize the clinicopathologic features and treatment outcomes of genitourinary embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma in a sample of Chinese patients. METHODS Basic demographic and clinical data of 29 patients, who were diagnosed with genitourinary embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma between ...

OBJECTIVE Nuclear actin is involved in transcription regulation by recruitment of histone modifiers and chromatin remodelers to the regulatory regions of active genes. In recent years, further attention has been focused on the role of actin as a nuclear protein in transcriptional processes. In the current study, the epigenetic role of nuclear actin on transcription regulation of two stemness (O...

The association between antenatal diagnostic X-ray exposure and risk of rhabdomyosarcoma in children was assessed in a national case-control study of 319 rhabdomyosarcoma cases and 319 matched controls. Data were collected by telephone interviews of subjects' parents. Overall, an odds ratio (OR) of 1.9 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.1-3.4] was found for any X-ray examination of the mother dur...

Self-renewal and the maintenance of pluripotency of mouse embryonal stem (ES) cells in vitro requires exogenous leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF). Mouse ES cells can be cultured and kept undifferentiated in the absence of embryonal feeder-cell layers when exogenous LIF concentrations are maintained above a threshold concentration. An important downstream target of LIF signal transduction in mous...

Undifferentiated embryonal sarcoma of the liver is a highly malignant and aggressive tumor that occasionally arises within mesenchymal hamartoma of the liver (MHL), a benign tumor that typically occurs in young children. Undifferentiated embryonal sarcoma arising in MHL, as well as uncomplicated MHL, frequently harbor rearrangements of band 19q13.4, including the translocation t(11;19)(q13;q13....

BACKGROUND There is only limited knowledge about gene expression in human testicular germ cell tumors of adolescents and adults (TGCTs), and, in particular in its preinvasive stage intratubular germ cell neoplasia unclassified (IGCNU). MATERIALS AND METHODS Global gene expression was studied in 10 invasive human testicular germ cell tumors (TGCTs), 7 intratubular germ cell neoplasia unclassif...