Newly Discovered Gene Could Be a Prime Target in the Most Lethal Brain Cancer

2/20/09
Duke Medicine News and Communications

Scientists at Duke University Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University have discovered mutations in two genes that could become therapeutic targets in malignant glioma, a dangerous class of brain tumors.

"The fact that the defective genes code for metabolic enzymes found only in malignant glioma, and not in normal tissue, could make the gene products therapeutic targets," says Hai Yan, MD, PhD, lead author, an assistant professor in the Duke Department of Pathology. The findings are published in the Feb. 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

These genetic flaws might also help distinguish between primary and secondary glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), two subtypes of especially deadly malignant gliomas, with survival of only months after their diagnosis. Patients that have mutation of the genes, isocitrate dehydrogenase 1, gene 1 and 2 (IDH1 and IDH2), also had a longer survival time.

Because the researchers found this genetic mutation in several different stages of glioma development, "the results suggested that the IDH mutations are the earliest genetic changes that start glioma progression," said Darell Bigner, MD, PhD, a co-author and director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University. Yet, patients with GBM or anaplastic astrocytoma who had the IDH mutations also were found to live longer than patients with those two cancers who lacked the mutations.