BCOR is an epigenetic regulator and is genetically altered by mutation, deletion, or gene fusion in a range of cancers. "Central nervous system high-grade neuroepithelial tumor with BCOR alteration" is a recently described entity with characteristic internal tandem duplications within exon 15 of the BCOR gene (hereafter: CNS HGNET-BCOR ex15 ITD). In this case series of 3 patients, we report the clinicopathologic, molecular, and methylome features of gliomas with novel EP300-BCOR in-frame gene fusions, thus expanding the spectrum of BCOR alterations seen in CNS tumors. The gliomas in this series arise in children (ages 10-18), involve the supratentorial compartment, and have an infiltrative pattern of growth and a myxoid/microcystic background with frequent psammomatous calcifications and prominent chicken-wire vessels. All 3 cases had areas with low-grade morphology and 2 of them demonstrated histologic high-grade transformation. In contrast to CNS HGNET-BCOR ex15 ITD, they lack perivascular pseudorosettes. On a t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding plot they cluster perfectly together, away from CNS HGNET-BCOR ex15ITD, consistent with a different entity. Gliomas with EP300-BCOR fusions and high-grade histology can demonstrate relatively rapid regrowth after debulking or subtotal resection.
Keywords: BCL-6 corepressor protein; BCOR rearranged glioma; BCOR-EP300 gene fusion; Glioma; Methylations studies; Neuroepithelial tumor.
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