Into Thin Air: Hypoxia Drives Metabolic and Epigenomic Deregulation of Lethal Pediatric Ependymoma

Posterior fossa type A (PFA) ependymoma is a lethal pediatric brain tumor proposed to be driven solely by epigenetic deregulation. Michealraj et al. (2020) demonstrate that hypoxia reprograms PFA metabolism and, subsequently, the epigenome toward H3K27 hypomethylation, mirroring transcriptional and metabolic signatures of gliogenic progenitors involved in embryonal hindbrain development.