1. Academic Validation
  2. NRCAM variant defined by microexon skipping is a targetable cell surface proteoform in high-grade gliomas

NRCAM variant defined by microexon skipping is a targetable cell surface proteoform in high-grade gliomas

  • Cell Rep. 2025 Aug 26;44(8):116099. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116099.
Priyanka Sehgal 1 Ammar S Naqvi 2 Makenna Higgins 1 Jiageng Liu 3 Kyra Harvey 4 Julien Jarroux 5 Taewoo Kim 5 Berk Mankaliye 5 Pamela Mishra 6 Grace Watterson 7 Justyn Fine 8 Jacinta Davis 1 Katharina E Hayer 6 Annette Castro 1 Adanna Mogbo 9 Charles Drummer 4th 1 Daniel Martinez 10 Mateusz P Koptyra 2 Zhiwei Ang 1 Kai Wang 11 Alvin Farrel 12 Mathieu Quesnel-Vallieres 13 Yoseph Barash 13 Jamie B Spangler 14 Jo Lynne Rokita 2 Adam C Resnick 2 Hagen U Tilgner 15 Thomas De Raedt 4 Daniel J Powell Jr 16 Andrei Thomas-Tikhonenko 17
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Division of Cancer Pathobiology, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 2 Center for Data-Driven Discovery in Biomedicine, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 3 Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 4 Division of Oncology, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 5 Center for Neurogenetics, Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
  • 6 Division of Cancer Pathobiology, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Department of Biomedical & Health Informatics, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 7 Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Group, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 8 Program in Molecular Biophysics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
  • 9 Vagelos Life Sciences Management Program, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 10 Pathology Core, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 11 Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 12 Department of Biomedical & Health Informatics, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 13 Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 14 Program in Molecular Biophysics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
  • 15 Center for Neurogenetics, Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA; Helen and Robert Appel Alzheimer's Disease Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
  • 16 Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 17 Division of Cancer Pathobiology, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Division of Oncology, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Group, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Electronic address: andreit@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.
Abstract

To overcome the paucity of known tumor-specific surface antigens in pediatric high-grade glioma (pHGG), we contrasted splicing patterns in pHGGs and normal brain samples. Among alternative splicing events affecting extracellular protein domains, the most pervasive alteration was the skipping of ≤30-nt-long exons. Several of these skipped microexons mapped to L1-immunoglobulin cell adhesion molecule (IgCAM) family members, such as neuronal CAM (NRCAM). Bulk and single-nuclei short- and long-read RNA-seq revealed uniform skipping of NRCAM microexons 5 and 19 in virtually every pHGG sample. Importantly, the Δex5Δex19 (but not the full-length) NRCAM proteoform was essential for pHGG cell migration and invasion in vitro and tumor growth in vivo. We developed a monoclonal antibody selective for Δex5Δex19 NRCAM and demonstrated that "painting" pHGG cells with this antibody enables killing by T cells armed with an FcRI-based universal immune receptor. Thus, pHGG-specific NRCAM and possibly Other L1-IgCAM proteoforms are promising and highly selective targets for adoptive immunotherapies.

Keywords

CP: Cancer; CP: Immunology; alternative splicing; antibodies; cell adhesion molecules; glioblastoma; glioma; immunotherapy; mRNA processing; microexons.

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