Neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer that develops from neural cells on the adrenal glands, accounts for 15% of childhood cancer deaths. Almost half of children with high-risk neuroblastoma harbor extra copies of the gene MYCN (MYCN amplified), the primary driver of neuroblastoma and its resistance to therapy.
“Treating neuroblastoma by directly targeting MYCN has been challenging,” said Dr. Eveline Barbieri, corresponding author of a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications and assistant professor of pediatrics — hematology and oncology at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital. “In this study we investigated new strategies to improve the survival of children with MYCN amplified neuroblastoma by looking into metabolic vulnerabilities that we could exploit to overturn these tumors’ resistance to therapy.”
Barbieri and her colleagues used an…
