Issues

May-Grünwald-Giemsa staining of IGR-N-91 neuroblastoma cells transduced with a dominant-negative (DN) variant of the catalytic subunit of the human telomerase (hTERT). Despite the use of high dose chemotherapy, stage 4-neuroblastoma patients have a dismal outcome, showing a need of new therapeutic approaches in these patients. A new link between telomerase biology and malignant neuroblast cell fate is discovered. Indeed, DN-hTERT transduction in a stage 4 neuroblastoma cell line promotes a switch from a neuronal to a substrate adherent phenotype and regulates key genes, leading to the loss of the malignant behavior of neuroblasts, thereby sensitizing them to anticancer drugs. Therefore, this finding has important implications in the development of novel strategies for neuroblastoma therapeutic management. For details, see article by Samy and colleagues on page 2384.