Antisense oligonucleotides and methods for treating central nervous system tumors

摘要

The invention provides compositions and methods for treating primary brain cancer. The compositions include at least one antisense oligonucleotide that inhibits the proliferation of primary brain cancer cells. The antisense oligonucleotides are preferably complementary to and hybridize to a mRNA encoding c-myb. A method of the invention involves treating patients with primary brain cancer with a pharmaceutical composition including at least one antisense oligonucleotide in an amount effective to inhibit primary brain cell proliferation. The invention also provides probes and primers useful to identify primary brain cells having amplified and/or rearranged genes encoding c-myb.