To this end, the MYC-ODC axis presents an attractive target for managing cancers such as neuroblastoma, a pediatric malignancy in which <i>MYCN</i> gene amplification correlates with poor prognosis and high-risk disease.
We earlier presented evidence for a physical interaction between ODC and SPR and we showed that RNAi-mediated knockdown of SPR expression significantly reduced native ODC enzyme activity and impeded NB cell proliferation.
ODC mRNA expression in NB tumors was significantly predictive of decreased overall survival probability and correlated with several unfavorable clinical NB characteristics (all p < 0.005).
We report here that genomic DNA from 1 of 6 primary neuroblastoma tumors containing amplified N-myc also contains amplified sequences homologous to a hamster ODC cDNA.