Research Highlight MADM gives new insights into gliomagenesis

In their recent paper, Liu et al. (2011) make use of an elegant genetic mouse model to study the formation of malignant brain tumors. Their findings add strong support to the growing body of evidence from several labs showing that some gliomas arise from oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs). They also provide new insights, and raise new questions, regarding where, when, and how malignant gliomas form. Identifying the cells that give rise to glioma has long been a major goal of neuro-oncology research. The underlying rationale is that studying these cells and defining the molecular alterations that can induce them to form tumors will lead to a better understanding of the mechan-isms that drive tumorigenesis, and facili-tate the development of new therapeutic strategies. A number of recent studies have addressed this question using geneti