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CHILDHOOD TUMORS

Linking human sympathoadrenal development and neuroblastoma

Nature Genetics volume 53, pages 593–594 (2021)Cite this article

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Cells resembling human fetal adrenal neuroblasts have been identified as major neuroblastoma cancer cells through single-cell mRNA comparison. Tumor risk stratification correlates with the differentiation of neuroblast-like neuroblastoma cells.

Neuroblastoma is a pediatric tumor accounting for approximately 15% of total cancer-related childhood deaths1. Neuroblastomas are located in the adrenal glands and in ganglia of the sympathetic nervous system. They are generated from neural crest progeny during the differentiation of adrenal chromaffin cells and sympathetic neurons, but the neuroblastoma founder cell is unknown. In this issue, articles by Jansky et al.2 and Kameneva et al.3 aim to identify the cell of origin of neuroblastoma through single-cell transcriptomic analysis of normal developing human adrenal glands and a series of neuroblastoma cases. Both studies agree that neuroblastoma cells match different stages along normal neuroblast differentiation trajectories and that neuroblastomas containing late, mature neuroblasts have better prognoses than neuroblastomas with early neuroblasts.

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Fig. 1: Schematic illustration of the changing composition of the human adrenal medulla during fetal development and the correlation with the stage-dependent composition of neuroblastoma.

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  1. Institute of Clinical Neuroanatomy, Dr. Senckenberg Anatomy, Neuroscience Center, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Hermann Rohrer

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  1. Hermann Rohrer
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Correspondence to Hermann Rohrer.

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Rohrer, H. Linking human sympathoadrenal development and neuroblastoma. Nat Genet 53, 593–594 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-021-00845-8

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