Global genomic and proteomic analysis identifies biological pathways related to high-risk neuroblastoma

Neuroblastoma (NB) is a heterogeneous pediatric tumor. To better understand the biological pathways involved in the development of high-risk neuroblastoma, we performed parallel global protein and mRNA expression profiling on NB tumors of stage 4 MYCN-amplified (4+) and stage 1 MYCN-not-amplified (1-) using isotope-coded affinity tags (ICAT) and Affymetrix U133plus2 microarray, respectively. A total of 1461 proteins represented by 2 or more peptides were identified from the quantitative ICAT analysis, of which 433 and 130 proteins are up- or down-regulated, respectively, in 4+ tumor compared to the 1- tumor. Pathway analysis of the differentially expressed proteins showed the enrichment of glycolysis, DNA replication and cell cycle processes in the up-regulated proteins and cell adhesion, nervous system development and cell differentiation processes in the down-regulated proteins in 4+ tumor; suggesting a less mature neural and a more invasive phenotype of 4+ tumor. Myc targets and ribosomal proteins are overrepresented in the 4+ tumors as expected; functional gene sets reported to be enriched in neural and embryonic stem cells are significantly enriched in the 4+ tumor, indicating the existence of a stemness signature in MYCN-amplified stage 4 tumor. In addition, protein and mRNA expression are moderately correlated (r = 0.51, p < 0.0001), as approximately half of the up-regulated proteins in 4+ tumor have elevated mRNA level (n = 208), and one-third of down-regulated proteins have lower mRNA expression (n = 47). Further biological network analysis revealed that the differentially expressed proteins closely interact with other proteins of known networks; the important role of MYCN is confirmed and other transcription factors identified in the network may have potential roles in the biology of NB tumor. We used global genomic and proteomic analysis to identify biologically relevant proteins and pathways important to NB progression and development that may provide new insights into the biology of advanced neuroblastoma.