TAp73 is a marker of glutamine addiction in medulloblastoma

Metabolically-targeted therapies hold the promise of offering an effective and less toxic treatment for tumours including medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumour of childhood. Current treatment relies on the sensitivity of these tumours to DNA damage that was discovered more than 50 years ago. Finding new tumour-specific susceptibilities to complement sensitivity to DNA damage is key to developing new more effective adjuvant therapies. The specific metabolic program of tumours is an attractive vulnerability, as restriction diet are low cost and easy to implement. Here, we present compelling pre-clinical evidence that glutamine restriction diet can be used as an adjuvant treatment for p73-expressing medulloblastoma. Overall design: siRNA constructs targeting p73 (ID: 2671-AMBION) and a non-targeting control siRNA (scramble) were transfected with 10?pM siRNA with lipofectamine 3000 according to the supplier's protocol for 48 hours