Opposing tumor promoting and suppressive functions of Rictor/mTORC2 signaling in adult glioma and pediatric SHH medulloblastoma

Most human cancers arise from stem/progenitor cells by sequential accumulation of genetic/epigenetic alterations, while cancer modeling typically requires simultaneous multiple oncogenic events. Here we show that a single p53 mutation, despite causing no defect in mouse brain, promoted neural stem/progenitor cells to spontaneously accumulate oncogenic alterations, including loss of multiple chromosomal (chr) regions syntenic to human chr10 containing Pten, forming malignant gliomas/glioblastomas with PI3K/Akt activation. Rictor/mTORC2 loss inhibited Akt signaling, greatly delaying and reducing glioma formation by suppressing glioma precursors within the subventricular zone stem-cell niche. Unexpectedly, Rictor/mTORC2 loss delayed timely differentiation of granule cell precursors (GCPs) during cerebellar development, promoting sustained GCP proliferation and medulloblastoma formation, which recapitulated critical features of TP53-mutant Sonic Hedgehog (SHH) medulloblastomas with GLI2 and/or N-MYC amplification. Our study demonstrates that Rictor/mTORC2 has opposing functions in neural stem cells and GCPs in the adult and developing brain, promoting malignant gliomas/glioblastoma and suppressing SHH-medulloblastoma formation, respectively. 22 mouse medulloblastomas, 6 mouse gliomas and 24 normal mouse brain tissues were profiled on the Affymetrix Mouse Genome mm430.2 array.