TERT promoter mutations are highly recurrent in SHH subgroup medulloblastoma

Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter mutations were recently shown to drive telomerase activity in various cancer types, including medulloblastoma. However, the clinical and biological implications of TERT mutations in medulloblastoma have not been described. Hence, we sought to describe these mutations and their impact in a subgroup-specific manner. We analyzed the TERT promoter by direct sequencing and genotyping in 466 medulloblastomas. The mutational distributions were determined according to subgroup affiliation, demographics, and clinical, prognostic, and molecular features. Integrated genomics approaches were used to identify specific somatic copy number alterations in TERT promoter-mutated and wild-type tumors. Overall, TERT promoter mutations were identified in 21 % of medulloblastomas. Strikingly, the highest frequencies of TERT mutations were observed in SHH (83 %; 55/66) and WNT (31 %; 4/13) medulloblastomas derived from adult patients. Group 3 and Group 4 harbored this alteration in <5 % of cases and showed no association wit

Recurrent noncoding U1 snRNA mutations drive cryptic splicing in SHH medulloblastoma

In cancer, recurrent somatic single-nucleotide variants—which are rare in most paediatric cancers—are confined largely to protein-coding genes1–3. Here we report highly recurrent hotspot mutations (r.3A&gt;G) of U1 spliceosomal small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) in about 50% of Sonic hedgehog (SHH) medulloblastomas. These mutations were not present across other subgroups of medulloblastoma, and we identified these hotspot mutations in U1 snRNA in only &lt;0.1% of 2,442 cancers, across 36 other tumour types. The mutations occur in 97% of adults (subtype SHHδ) and 25% of adolescents (subtype SHHα) with SHH medulloblastoma, but are largely absent from SHH medulloblastoma in infants. The U1 snRNA mutations occur in the 5′ splice-site binding region, and snRNA-mutant tumours have significantly disrupted RNA splicing and an excess of 5′ cryptic splicing events. Alternative splicing mediated by mutant U1 snRNA inactivates tumour-suppressor genes (PTCH1) and activates oncogenes (GLI2 and CCND2), and represents a target for therapy. These U1 snRNA mutations provide an example of highly recurrent and tissue-specific mutations of a non-protein-coding gene in cancer