Epigenetic Regulation of High-Grade Glioma Plasticity

Dear Colleagues, 

High-grade gliomas (HGGs) are the most common and devastating form of primary malignant brain tumors. Despite the fact that multimodal therapies combine surgery and radio/chemotherapy, the survival rate of HGG patients remains very poor. HGGs are characterized by an exceptional intratumoral heterogeneity, resulting in the coexistence of cancer cell populations in distinct functional states, with respect to stem-like properties, proliferation, migration capacity, pro-angiogenic properties, drug resistance or tumorigenicity. Such a functional heterogeneity confuses the prognosis and constitutes a major obstacle for conventional anti-tumor therapies. One source of this functional heterogeneity relies on HGG cell plasticity, which endows them with the ability to switch in a reversible manner from one functional state to another in response to changes in their microenvironment. This functional plasticity, characterized by a complex regulation of gene expression, is mainly orchestrated by epigenetic processes, such as DNA methylation, histone modifications and various RNA-based mechanisms. The pivotal role of epigenetic modifications stems from their location downstream of several cell signaling processes, including growth factors, hormones, cell­-cell interactions and metabolism reprograming. As a consequence, epigenetics act as a bottleneck by integrating all the upstream signals.

The goal of this Special Issue is to highlight the importance of epigenetic processes in the regulation of HGG plasticity.

We invite submission of both original research and review articles that cover, but are not restricted to, the following areas:

- non-coding RNA and HGG plasticity

-Histone modifications and HGG plasticity

- Metabolic control of epigenome and HGG plasticity

- DNA methylation and HGG plasticity

- 3D chromatin organisation and HGG plasticity 

Prof. Dr. Elias A. El-Habr
Dr. Thierry Virolle
Guest Editors

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• Glioblastoma, Intra-tumoral heterogeneity, Metabolites, Epigenetic modifiers, DNA hydroxymethylation, histone methylation, histone acetylation, miRNA, lncRNA