The COP has made significant progress on the inaugural comparative pathology effort for this new initiative in 2018, with a publication currently in review at the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology. The pathology board, consisting of a joint veterinary/physician neuropathology commission of 14 members, developed an updated grading and classification scheme for canine gliomas to promote uniformity in diagnosis across institutions and improve making comparisons with human adult and pediatric glial tumors. A retrospective pathologic assessment of approximately 200 hematoxylin and eosin stained glass slides + a panel of 5 IHC markers treatment-naive canine gliomas of all subtypes and grades has been conducted. The CBTC membership has also proposed genomic analyses and expression profiling of a minimum of 50 canine high-grade gliomas meeting these newly revised classification criteria to allow for comparison with human adult and pediatric glial tumors, and to generate potential pharmacologic targets for canine patients. This project will be both retrospective and prospective in nature. For the retrospective portion, snap-frozen tissue from institutions with paired banked FFPE tissue from histopathology-confirmed glial tumors that have been confirmed within the newly proposed grading and classification scheme, will be subjected to whole-exome sequencing and RNA-seq. For the prospective portion, CBTC members (Texas A&M University/MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, and University of Califnornia @ Davis) have partnered with Roel Verhaak at the Jackson laboratory. Dr Verhaak is working with these CBTC members, whom have received NCI funding through a P30 CC supplemental mechanism, to generate molecular profiles from an overlapping set of canine gliomas, which will include WGS/WES/RNAseq and methylation profiling data. Sequence information will be subjected to informatics, processed, and shared publicly as soon as publication-ready. We have also initiated several other projects in this area, which are listed here: 1. Whole-exome sequencing of n = 50 canine meningiomas (in collaboration with Renee Chambers at UAB and Greg Tawa/NIH/NCATS 2. Survey instrument to veterinary neurologists in the US to capture the clinical landscape of canine brain tumor management 3. High-throughput drug screening of P53 w/t canine and pediatric glioma cell lines 4. A clinical trial of a novel capsize-3 activating small molecule (PAC-1) in dogs with meningioma, which is linked to assessment of a novel apoptosis-reporting PET imaging agent (in collaboration with NHLBI/IPDC, NCI/CCR/MIP, and University of Illinois. 5. MRI consensus statement on harmonization of imaging parameters for dogs enrolled in brain tumor clinical trials (manuscript published in Veterinary Radiology and Ultrasound). New projects proposed for 2018- beyond include: a companion comparative histologic and molecular characterization project in canine meningioma; extension of the HTS project with NCATS to include 5 new canine glioma stem cell lines generated at Univ of CA-Davis, and a bi-monthly WebEx to offer continuing exchange of ideas and projects among interested CBTC members.
