The transcriptomic signature of painful and non-painful human NF2 schwannomas [set2]

Schwannomas are benign peripheral nerve sheath tumors that are associated with substantial morbidity including severe, persistent pain. Treatment, essentially limited to surgical resection, is associated with significant morbidity and for many patient’s efficacious treatment of tumor-related pain is not achievable. There is an urgent need to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying schwannoma-induced pain as a first step in development of new therapeutics. In this study, we performed next-generation RNASequencing on a small cohort of formalin fixed paraffin-embedded, painful, and non-painful schwannoma samples obtained from Neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) patients. Differential gene and isoform level expression analysis revealed significant transcriptomic differences between painful and non-painful tumors; differentially regulated genes included members of the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) family of genes. Using a xenograft model of human-NF2 we demonstrated that over-expression of FGF7 in schwannoma cells was associated with the development of pain-like behaviors. These results demonstrate both the value of RNASeq utilizing formalin fixed tissues and reveal a novel pathway responsible for neoplasm-associated pain. Examined the transcriptomic differences of formalin fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) painful (n=4) and non-painful (n=3) peripheral human NF2-schwannomas.