Glioma resections using ISM are associated with fewer late severe neurologic deficits and more extensive resection, and they involve eloquent locations more frequently. This indicates that ISM should be universally implemented as standard of care for glioma surgery.

SUMMARY Kinases execute pivotal cellular functions and are therefore widely investigated as potential targets in anticancer treatment. Here we analyze the kinase gene expression profiles of various tumor types and reveal the wee1 kinase to be overexpressed in glioblastomas. We demonstrate that WEE1 is a major regulator of the G2 checkpoint in glioblastoma cells. Inhibition of WEE1 by siRNA or small molecular compound in cells exposed to DNA damaging agents results in abrogation of the G2 arrest, premature termination of DNA repair, and cell death. Importantly, we show that the small-molecule inhibitor of WEE1 sensitizes glioblastoma to ionizing radiation in vivo. Our results suggest that inhibition of WEE1 kinase holds potential as a therapeutic approach in treatment of glioblastoma.

Multiple changes at the DNA level are at the basis of complex diseases. Identifying the genetic networks that are influenced by these changes might help in understanding the development of these diseases. Canonical correlation analysis is used to associate gene expressions with DNA-markers and thus reveals sets of co-expressed and co-regulated genes and their associating DNA-markers. However, when the number of variables gets high, e.g. in the case of microarray studies, interpretation of these results can be difficult. By adapting the elastic net to canonical correlation analysis the number of variables reduces, and interpretation becomes easier, moreover, due to the grouping effect of the elastic net co-regulated and co-expressed genes cluster. Additionally, our adaptation works well in situations where the number of variables exceeds by far the number of subjects.