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Updated: Jun 18, 2026

Characterization of Functionally Associated miRNAs in Glioblastoma and their Engineering into Artificial Clusters for Gene Therapy
Published on: October 4, 2019
Frequent amplification of a chr19q13.41 microRNA polycistron in aggressive primitive neuroectodermal brain tumors
Meihua Li1, Kyle F Lee, Yuntao Lu
1Division of Hematology-Oncology, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 0A3, Canada.
Abstract:
We discovered a high-level amplicon involving the chr19q13.41 microRNA (miRNA) cluster (C19MC) in 11/45 ( approximately 25%) primary CNS-PNET, which results in striking overexpression of miR-517c and 520g. Constitutive expression of miR-517c or 520g promotes in vitro and in vivo oncogenicity, modulates cell survival, and robustly enhances growth of untransformed human neural stem cells (hNSCs) in part by upregulating WNT pathway signaling and restricting differentiation of hNSCs. Remarkably, the C19MC amplicon, which is very rare in other brain tumors (1/263), identifies an aggressive subgroup of CNS-PNET with distinct gene-expression profiles, characteristic histology, and dismal survival. Our data implicate miR-517c and 520g as oncogenes and promising biological markers for CNS-PNET and provide important insights into oncogenic properties of the C19MC locus.
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