Spatially Encoded Oncogenesis and Transcriptional Plasticity in Meningioma: Drivers of Therapeutic Resistance and Opportunities for Targeted Intervention.

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Abstract

Whilst typically benign, a subset of meningiomas displays aggressive and recurrent behavior. There is a paucity of reliable treatment options for this subset of patients and a relative lack of consensus on how to best manage these patients. This clinical challenge reflects underlying molecular complexity, driven by NF2, TRAF7, and CDKN2A/B mutations alongside pervasive epigenetic dysregulation. High-throughput molecular profiling studies have proposed biologically distinct meningioma subgroups with varying clinical trajectories and therapeutic vulnerabilities. Distinct cell lineages of meningeal precursors are now appreciated to be essential in the establishment of the meninges. The numerous cellular lineages involved in meningeal development, the heterogeneity of meningioma location and (epi)genomic behavior, and the variability in its clinical and radiological manifestations raise the question of what critical insights can be gained by understanding meningeal development during embryogenesis to understand meningioma tumorigenicity. The current paper examines this paradigm by highlighting spatially linked mechanisms of anaplasia and treatment resistance, including the role of neural crest-derived convexity meninges in promoting dedifferentiation via YAP/TAZ signaling and mesoderm-derived skull base regions in maintaining TRAF7-mediated vulnerabilities. We further elucidate the emerging synthetic lethal paradigms, CRISPR-enabled target discovery, and PROTAC-mediated degradation strategies that may transform the therapeutic landscape of clinically challenging meningiomas driven by complex oncogenic circuitry. By bridging embryogenesis, spatial genomics, and molecular targeting, we propose a developmentally informed, lineage-stratified model for advancing precision therapeutics in high-grade and recurrent meningiomas.

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