Neuronal differentiation and synaptogenesis in retinoblastoma

Retinoblastomas initiate in the developing retina in utero and are diagnosed during the first few years of life. We have recently generated a series of knockout mouse models of retinoblastoma that recapitulate the timing, location, and progression of human retinoblastoma. One of the most important benefits of these preclinical models is that we can study the earliest stages of tumor initiation and expansion. This is not possible in human retinoblastoma because tumors initiate in utero and are not diagnosed until they are at an advanced stage. We found that mouse retinoblastoma cells exhibit a surprising degree of differentiation, which has not been previously reported for any neural tumor. Early-stage mouse retinoblastoma cells express proteins found normally in retinal plexiform layers. They also extend neurites and form synapses. All of these features, which were characterized by immunostaining, Golgi-Cox staining, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy, suggest that mouse retinoblastoma cells resemble amacrine/horizontal cells from the retina. As late-stage retinoblastoma cells expand and invade the surrounding tissue, they lose their differentiated morphology and become indistinguishable from human retinoblastomas. Taken together, our data suggest that neuronal differentiation is a hallmark of early-stage retinoblastoma and is lost as cells become more aggressive and invasive. We also show that rosette formation is not a hallmark of retinoblastoma differentiation, as previously believed. Instead, rosette formation reflects extensive cell-cell contacts between retinoblastoma cells in both early-stage (differentiated) and late-stage (dedifferentiated) tumors.