Fig. 3

The positive-feedback machinery of N-Myc to induce and maintain the stemness of neuroblastoma. Neuroblastoma is the most common high grade endocrine childhood-onset tumor, which often occurs in the adrenal medulla and sympathetic ganglions. N-Myc exhibits the significant up-regulation in cooperation with NCYM, which is a cis-antisense transcript of oncogene product N-Myc and a functional long non-coding RNA. N-Myc enhances the expression level of Oct4, which play a pivotal role in the maintenance of undifferentiated conditions of medulloblastoma. Oct4 has dual functions; to induce the expression of Nanog, another key transcriptional factor, and to enhance N-Myc expression in a positive-feedback manner [86]. While the filled areas in blue or red indicate opening reading frames (ORFs), the blank areas mean the exons encoding prime untranslated regions such as 3’ and 5’ UTR