fig1

Figure 1. Schematic representation of cellular and molecular events in embryogenesis and diverted signaling events leading to NB genesis. SAPs undergo a Snail/Slug-dependent EMT that augments NCCs’ migratory abilities, allowing them to migrate out of the neural tube. The prompted migration, accompanied by regulation of DNA repair genes in SAPs, makes them vulnerable to many genomic alterations leading to the genesis of NB. While embryogenesis is a sequential step-down process from pluripotency to differentiation, advancing disease stages of NB progress successively from differentiated to undifferentiated self-renewing multipotent CSCs. NB: neuroblastoma; SAPs: sympathoadrenal progenitors; EMT: epithelial-mesenchymal transition; CSCs: cancer stem cells