A new study reveals comprehensive and unique epigenetic properties of glioma stem cells, leading to novel molecular insights and therapeutic potentials toward glioblastoma multiforme treatment. | Yao and Jin Genome Biology 2018 19 51 https s13059-018-1429-x RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT Open Access A unique epigenomic landscape defines the characteristics and differentiation potentials of glioma stem cells Bing Yao and Peng Jin excellent therapeutic target for GBM treatment. The Abstract lack of complete and high-quality epigenetic and tran- A new study reveals comprehensive and unique scriptome maps in GSCs hinders our understanding of epigenetic properties of glioma stem cells leading to the underlying critical differences at the transcriptional novel molecular insights and therapeutic potentials level between malignant GSCs and normal NSCs as toward glioblastoma multiforme treatment. well as the epigenetic machinery involved in regulating their proliferation and differentiation. In this issue of Genome Biology Zhou et al. take on Introduction this vital challenge to generate comprehensive genome- Glioblastoma multiforme GBM also known as glio- wide epigenomic profiling for various forms of cytosine blastoma is one of the most aggressive and infiltrative modifications of DNA at single-base resolution and tumors in the central nervous system CNS . The 5-year signature histone modifications of enhancers and tran- survival rate of patients with GBM is less than 5 and scriptomes of GSCs isolated from patient-derived they have a poor prognosis for recovery 1 . Therefore xenografts with NSCs isolated from fetal brains as new effective therapeutic approaches to treat GBM are controls 6 . urgently needed. Despite substantial progress over the past decades our understanding of GBM pathology at the molecular level is still largely lacking owing to its Epigenetic dysregulations in GSCs heterogeneous nature with unique genetic and epigen- Covalent modifications of DNA at the 5-carbon position etic alterations 2 . of cytosine such as 5-methylcytosine 5mC play signifi- Neurogenesis generates various functional neural cell cant epigenetic roles in the mammalian .
